[Math] Number of points of intersections, no of parts of chords inside circle

combinatorial-geometrycombinatoricsdiscrete mathematicsgeometry

$n$ points ($n>1$) are taken on the circumference of a circle. Through any two of them a chord is drawn. No three chords intersect at one point inside the circle.
i) Find how many points of intersections of these chords are inside the circle?
ii) Find how many parts do these chords divide the circle?

I know one solution is to make a graph and use Euler's formula $v-e+f=2$. But that idea I would have never come up with. Is there any other way to approach this?

Best Answer

I do not think there is a better approach to find the number of parts (part ii) comparing to the Euler's formula. But to use it one should first find the number of vertices and edges, and for this task I do not see how the Euler's formula can help.

For simplicity we disregard the circle arcs and will consider only the graph consisting of line segments connecting the points.

Let $s$ be a segment connecting two points of the circle. The points split the circle in two parts. Let the number of points in one of the parts be $k$. Then the number of points in the other part is $(n-k-2)$. Every segment which connects a point lying in one part with a point lying in the other part will intersect the segment $s$, whereas any segment connecting two points lying in the same part will not intersect $s$. Therefore the overall number of intersection points of the segment $s$ with other segments is $k(n-2-k)$ and the overall number of intersection points on all segments drawn from each of the considered circle points is: $$ v''_n=\sum_{k=0}^{n-2}k(n-2-k)=\frac{(n-1)(n-2)(n-3)}6=\binom{n-1}3\tag1 $$ and the overall number of the intersection points inside the circle is $$ v'_n=\frac n4 v''_n=\binom n4,\tag2 $$ where factor 4 in the denominator accounts for the fact that while summing over all $n$ circle points every internal intersection point is counted 4 times.

To compute the overall number of vertices we shall add the number of the circle points to the obtained result: $$ v_n=v'_n+n=\frac{n(n+1)(n^2-7n+18)}{24}.\tag3 $$

The number of edges can be computed similarly. Observe that the segment $s$ is split by $n_s$ internal intersection points into $n_s+1$ edges therefore: $$ e''_n=\sum_{k=0}^{n-2}[k(n-2-k)+1]=\binom{n-1}3+\binom{n-1}1=\frac{(n-1)(n^2-5n+12)}6,\tag4 $$ and the overall number of the edges inside the circle is $$ e'_n=\frac n2 e''_n=\frac{n(n-1)(n^2-5n+12)}{12},\tag5 $$ where factor 2 in the denominator accounts for the fact that while summing over all $n$ circle points every chord is counted 2 times.

To compute the overall number of edges we shall add the number of arcs connecting the circle points to the obtained result: $$ e_n=e'_n+n=\frac{n^2(n^2-6n+17)}{12}.\tag6 $$ Finally we use the Euler's formula for computing the number of parts inside the circle: $$ f_n=e_n-v_n+1=\frac{n^4-6n^3+23n^2-18n+24}{24}.\tag7 $$

And indeed the latter formula describes - as it should - the OEIS sequence A000127.