Let be a set of 2017 distinct points in the plane. Let be the radius of the smallest circle containing all points in on either the interior or boundary. Also, let be the longest distance between two of the points in . Let be real numbers such that for all possible sets , where is as large as possible and is as small as possible. Find the pair .
Problem 1838
Official solution
Solution:
It is easy to verify that the smallest circle enclosing all the points will either have some 2 points in as its diameter, or will be the circumcircle of some 3 points in who form an acute triangle.
Now, clearly . Indeed consider the two farthest pair of points . Then , as both points are inside a circle of radius . We can achieve this upper bound by taking to have essentially only 2 points, and the remaining 2015 points in are at the same place as these 2 points.
For the other direction, I claim . Recall that the smallest circle is either the circumcircle of 3 points, or has some 2 points as the diameter. In the latter case, say the diameter is . Then , so in that case. Now say the points are the circumcircle. WLOG, say that is the longest side of the triangle. As remarked above, we can assume this triangle is acute. Therefore, . By the Law of Sines we have that
This completes the proof. To achieve equality, we can take to have 3 points in the shape of an equilateral triangle.