The Square Peg Problem asks whether every continuous simple closed planar
curve contains the four vertices of a square. This paper proves this for the
largest so far known class of curves.
A triple of positive integers (d,h,m) is admissible if for any m given masses
in R^d there exist h hyperplanes that cut each of these masses into 2^h equal
pieces. We present an elementary reduction which combined with results by Ramos
(1996) yields all the admissible triples that were known up to now (with one
exception) as well as new ones.
We prove the following optimal colorful Tverberg--Vrecica type transversal
theorem. For a prime $r$ and $k+1$ colored collections $S_i=\biguplus S_i^j$,
$|S_i|=(r-1)(d-k+1)$, $|S_i^j|\leq r-1$, $i=0,...,k$, of points in $\R^d$ there
exist a partition of each collection $S_i$ into colorful sets
$T_i^1,...,T_i^{r}$ with a $k$-plane meeting all their convex hulls
$\conv(T_i^j)$, under the assumption that $r(d-k)$ is even or $k=0$.
We introduce PSN polytopes, whose k-skeleton is combinatorially equivalent to
that of a product of r simplices. They simultaneously generalize both
neighborly and neighborly cubical polytopes.
We construct PSN polytopes by three different methods, the most versatile of
which is an extension of Sanyal and Ziegler's "projecting deformed products"
construction to products of arbitrary simple polytopes. For general r and k,
the lowest dimension we achieve is 2k+r+1.