A finite collection of triangles on the plane are intersecting if, for any two triangles in the collection, the intersection of their interiors is not empty. Show that for any two finite collections of intersecting triangles, there exists a straight line that simultaneously intersects the interiors of all triangles in both collections.
Solution
Take any point on the plane, and let be the directed line through making an angle with the positive -axis. Note that for the -th collection (), the projection of each triangle in the -th collection onto is a finite interval, and by the intersecting property, these intervals pairwise intersect. This means that the intersection of the projections of all triangles in the -th collection is also a finite interval (this can be proven using convexity or induction¹); let denote the signed distance from to the midpoint of the interval formed by the projection of the -th collection (according to the direction of ).
Now, note that is a continuous function of , and . This means that if , then , so by the Intermediate Value Theorem there exists such that , and this means that the intersection of the projections onto of all triangles in both collections is nonempty. Choose any point in this intersection; then it is easy to see that the line through perpendicular to will pass through the interiors of all triangles in both collections. The same discussion applies to the case , and the case is obvious, so the proof is complete.