Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T04:18:00.871Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Elements of Packing and Covering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

N. Oler*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The term 'covering' is known to any student who has seen the Heine-Borel theorem and he soon learns that it denotes a very basic and widely used concept. Quite generally, a family {Xα: α ∈ A} of a subsets of X is a covering of the subset Y of X if .

The concept of packing is perhaps no less frequently encountered although the term has only a rather specialized use. In general, a packing is any family of subsets {Xα: α ∈ A} of a set X which a re pairwise disjoint. To make this definition more similar to that of covering, we might define {Xα} to be a packing of the subset Y of X if Xα ∩ Xβ ∩ Y = ϕ for α ≠ β. This is intended to suggest only a P that there is a certain parallel between the ideas of packing and covering but not a duality in any technical sense.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Mathematical Society 1968

References

1. Macbeath, A.M., Abstract theory of packings and coverings I. Proc. Glasgow Math. Assoc. 4 (1959) 92-95.Google Scholar
2. Fejes-Toth, L., Lagerungen in der Ebene auf der Kugel und im Raum. (Springer, Berlin, 1953).Google Scholar
3. Cassels, J. W.S., An introduction to the geometry of numbers. (Springer, Berlin, 1959).Google Scholar
4. Rogers, C.A., Packing and covering. (Cambridge, 1964).Google Scholar
5. Halmos, P.R., Measure theory. (Van No strand, New York, 1950).Google Scholar
6. Siegel, C. L., Discontinuous groups. Annals of Maths. 44 (1943) 674-689.Google Scholar