On the Lengths of Curves Passing Through Boundary Points of a Planar Convex Shape

Abstract

We study the lengths of curves passing through a fixed number of points on the boundary of a convex shape in the plane. We show that, for any convex shape K, there exist four points on the boundary of K such that the length of any curve passing through these points is at least half of the perimeter of K. It is also shown that the same statement does not remain valid with the additional constraint that the points are extreme points of K. Moreover, the factor ½ cannot be achieved with any fixed number of extreme points. We conclude the paper with a few other inequalities related to the perimeter of a convex shape.