Convex geometry in the context of Functional analysis

Hermann Minkowski (22 June 1864 – 12 January 1909) was a mathematician and professor at the University of Königsberg, ETH Zürich, and the University of Göttingen, described variously as German, Polish, Lithuanian-German, or Russian. He created and developed the geometry of numbers and elements of convex geometry, and used geometrical methods to solve problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity.

Minkowski is perhaps best known for his foundational work describing space and time as a four-dimensional space, now known as "Minkowski spacetime", which facilitated geometric interpretations of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905).

Discrete geometry and combinatorial geometry are branches of geometry that study combinatorial properties and constructive methods of discrete geometric objects. Most questions in discrete geometry involve finite or discrete sets of basic geometric objects, such as points, lines, planes, circles, spheres, polygons, and so forth. The subject focuses on the combinatorial properties of these objects, such as how they intersect one another, or how they may be arranged to cover a larger object.

Discrete geometry has a large overlap with convex geometry and computational geometry, and is closely related to subjects such as finite geometry, combinatorial optimization, digital geometry, discrete differential geometry, geometric graph theory, toric geometry, and combinatorial topology.

In functional analysis, the Hahn–Banach theorem is a central result that allows the extension of bounded linear functionals defined on a vector subspace of some vector space to the whole space. The theorem also shows that there are sufficient continuous linear functionals defined on every normed vector space in order to study the dual space. Another version of the Hahn–Banach theorem is known as the Hahn–Banach separation theorem or the hyperplane separation theorem, and has numerous uses in convex geometry.

Geometric combinatorics is a branch of mathematics in general and combinatorics in particular. It includes a number of subareas such as polyhedral combinatorics (the study of faces of convex polyhedra), convex geometry (the study of convex sets, in particular combinatorics of their intersections), and discrete geometry, which in turn has many applications to computational geometry. Other important areas include metric geometry of polyhedra, such as the Cauchy theorem on rigidity of convex polytopes. The study of regular polytopes, Archimedean solids, and kissing numbers is also a part of geometric combinatorics. Special polytopes are also considered, such as the permutohedron, associahedron and Birkhoff polytope.