Minkowski's Theorem: Let be a convex figure in the plane, symmetric with respect to the origin, and with an area greater than 4. Prove: The figure must cover a lattice point other than the origin.
Solution
Prove that using lines parallel to the coordinate axes to divide the plane into some squares, and then translating all the squares that cover the points of to the same square, since the area of is greater than 4, there must be a point in this square that is covered by the squares containing points of twice, i.e., there are two points in , whose differences in both the x-coordinates and y-coordinates are multiples of 2. Since the figure is symmetric about the origin, the point symmetric to about the origin is , then . Let , then . Therefore, is , so the coordinates of the midpoint of are . Since is a convex figure, is inside .
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