Kneser–Poulsen Conjecture
OPENLandmarkConjectureProposed 1954–1955 · Standard version
Canonical statement
Let , , and satisfy
Writing for the closed Euclidean ball and for -dimensional Lebesgue measure, one has
and
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Let \(d,N\geq1\), \(r>0\), and
\(p_1,\ldots,p_N,q_1,\ldots,q_N\in\mathbb R^d\) satisfy
\[
\lVert q_i-q_j\rVert_2\leq\lVert p_i-p_j\rVert_2
\quad\text{for all }i,j.
\]
Writing \(B(x,r)\) for the closed Euclidean ball and
\(\operatorname{vol}_d\) for \(d\)-dimensional Lebesgue measure, one has
\[
\operatorname{vol}_d\!\left(\bigcup_{i=1}^N B(q_i,r)\right)
\leq
\operatorname{vol}_d\!\left(\bigcup_{i=1}^N B(p_i,r)\right)
\]
and
\[
\operatorname{vol}_d\!\left(\bigcap_{i=1}^N B(q_i,r)\right)
\geq
\operatorname{vol}_d\!\left(\bigcap_{i=1}^N B(p_i,r)\right).
\]Notes
Both inequalities are known in the plane and for continuous contractions and other special cases. For arbitrary finite contractions in dimensions , the full assertion remains open.
The date range spans Poulsen's 1954 problem and Kneser's 1955 formulation; this record fixes the equal-radius union-and-intersection version.
References (4)
- [Kneser1955Poulsen]
Einige Bemerkungen über das Minkowskische Flächenmaß
Open ↗Martin Kneser · 1955 · misc
- [Csikos1998Balls]
On the Volume of the Union of Balls
Open ↗Balázs Csikós · 1998 · misc
- [BezdekConnelly2002KneserPoulsen]
Pushing disks apart–-the Kneser–Poulsen conjecture in the plane
Open ↗Károly Bezdek and Robert Connelly · 2002 · misc
- [BezdekLangi2026BallSurvey]
Selected topics from the theory of intersections of balls
Open ↗Károly Bezdek and Zsolt Lángi and Márton Naszódi · 2026 · misc
The boxed statement is the canonical open formulation — not a stronger variant or a related research program. The status reflects the catalog's last review; do your own literature search before investing serious effort.