The purpose of this note is to bring into attention an apparently forgotten result of C. M. Petty: a convex body has minimal surface area among its affine transformations of the same volume if, and only if, its area measure is isotropic. We obtain sharp affine inequalities which demonstrate the fact that this “surface isotropic” position is a natural framework for the study of hyperplane projections of convex bodies.

A new and more geometric proof is obtained of Stanley's lower bounds on the face numbers of centrally symmetric simple polytopes.

In connection with the thesis of Ch. Charitos (1989), T. Hasanis posed the following question.

The paper shows that no origin-symmetric convex polyhedron in R3 is the intersection body of a star body. It is shown also that every originsymmetric convex body in Rd, for d = 3 and 4, can be seen as the intersection body of a star-shaped set whose radial function satisfies conditions related to suitable non-integer Sobolev classes.

Several results are proved related to a question of Steinhaus: is there a set E⊂ℝ2 such that the image of E under each rigid motion of IR2 contains exactly one lattice point? Assuming measurability, the analogous question in higher dimensions is answered in the negative, and on the known partial results in the two dimensional case are improved on. Also considered is a related problem involving finite sets of rotations.

An origin-symmetric convex body K in ℝn is called an intersection body if its radial function ρK is the spherical Radon transform of a non-negative measure µ on the unit sphere Sn−1. When µ is a positive continuous function, K is called the intersection body of a star body. The notion of intersection body was introduced by Lutwak [L]. It played a key role in the solution of the Busemann-Petty problem, see [G1], [G2], [L], [Z1] and [Z2]. Koldobsky [K] showed that the cross-polytope is an intersection body. This indicates that the statement in [Z3] that no origin-symmetric convex polytope in ℝn (n > 3) is an intersection body is not correct. This paper will prove the weaker statement that no origin-symmetric convex polytope in ℝn (n > 3) is the intersection body of a star body.

We are interested in the distribution of those zeros of the Riemann zeta-function which lie on the critical line ℜs = ½, and the maxima of the function between successive zeros. Our results are to be independent of any unproved hypothesis. Put

Hilbert's inequality asserts that

for arbitrary complex numbers ar. The constant π was first obtained by Schur [5], and is best possible. Following a suggestion of Selberg, Montgomery and Vaughan [4] showed that

where the γr are distinct real numbers and

Let k be a positive integer and g(k) be the least integer n > k + 1 such that all prime factors of are >k. We prove that

where c is an absolute positive constant. We also establish a new theorem on the distribution of fractional parts of a smooth function.

In this paper, it is proved that, for any m unit vectors. x1…, xm in any n-dimensional real Hilbert space, there exists a unit vector x0 such that

for any y∈Sn−1. The exact value of the above integral is calculated, and these results used to improve some lower bounds for multilinear forms on real Hilbert spaces. An integral expression is also given for the complex case.

Investigations concerning the gaps between consecutive prime numbers have long occupied an important position on the interface between additive and multiplicative number theory. Perhaps the most famous problem concerning these gaps, the Twin Prime Conjecture, asserts that the aforementioned gaps are infinitely often as small as 2. Although a proof of this conjecture seems presently far beyond our reach (but see [5] and [10] for related results), weak evidence in its favour comes from studying unusually short gaps between prime numbers. Thus, while it follows from the Prime Number Theorem that the average gap between consecutive primes of size about x is around log x, it is now known that such gaps can be infinitely often smaller than 0–249 log x (this is a celebrated result of Maier [12], building on earlier work of a number of authors; see in particular [7], [13], [3] and [11]). A conjecture weaker than the Twin Prime Conjecture asserts that there are infinitely many gaps between prime numbers which are powers of 2, but unfortunately this conjecture also seems well beyond our grasp. Extending this line of thought, Kent D. Boklan has posed the problem of establishing that the gaps between prime numbers infinitely often have only small prime divisors, and here the latter divisors should be small relative to the size of the small gaps established by Maier [12]. In this paper we show that the gaps between consecutive prime numbers infinitely often have only small prime divisors, thereby solving Boklan's problem. It transpires that the methods which we develop to treat Boklan's problem are capable also of detecting multiplicative properties of more general type in the differences between consecutive primes, and this theme we also explore herein.

In [4], we investigated the spaces of continuous functions on countable products of compact Hausdorff spaces. Our main object here is to extend the discussion to arbitrary products of compact Hausdorff spaces. We prove the following theorems in Section 3.

A (countably) compact measure is one which is inner regular with respect to a (countably) compact class of sets. This note characterizes compact probability measures in terms of the representation of Boolean homomorphisms of their measure algebras, and shows that the same ideas can be used to give a direct proof of J. Pachl's theorem that any image measure of a countably compact measure is again countably compact.

The following Bernstein-type theorem in hyperbolic spaces is proved. Let ∑ be a non-zero constant mean curvature complete hypersurface in the hyperbolic space ℍn. Suppose that there exists a one-to-one orthogonal projection from ∑ into a horosphere. (1) If the projection is surjective, then ∑ is a horosphere. (2) If the projection is not surjective and its image is simply connected, then ∑ is a hypersphere.

Questions of Haight and of Weizsäcker are answered in the following result. There exists a measurable function f: (0, + ∞) → {0,1} and two non-empty intervals IFI∞⊂[½,1) such that Σ∞n = 1f(nx) = +∞ for everyx εI∞, and Σ∞n = 1f(nx) >+∞ for almost every xεIf. The function f may be taken to be the characteristic function of an open set E.

Let ν be a rank 1 henselian valuation of a field K having unique extension ῡ to an algebraic closure of K. For any subextension L/K of /K, let G (L), Res (L) denote respectively the value group and the residue field of the valuation obtained by restricting ῡ to L. If a∈\K define

Given a Banach space X and a norming subspace Z⊂X*, a geometrical method is introduced to characterize the existence of an equivalent σ(X, Z)-lsc LUR norm on X. A new simple proof of the Theorem of Troyanski: every rotund space with a Kadec norm is LUR renormable, and a generalization of the Moltó, Orihuela and Troyanski characterization of the LUR renormability, are provided without probability arguments. Among other applications, it is shown that a dual Banach space with a w*-Kadec norm admits a dual LUR norm.

This note presents a classification of commutative, cancellative monoids S by flatness properties of their associated S-acts.

For the optimal approximation of convex bodies by inscribed or circumscribed polytopes there are precise asymptotic results with respect to different notions of distance. In this paper we derive some results on optimal approximation without restricting the polytopes to be inscribed or circumscribed.

In this paper it is proved that, for x sufficiently large, every integer m with

can be written as m = Σ1≤n≤xεn/n, where εi, = 0 or 1.