Linear Programming Lecture Notes - Penn State Personal Web Server
Linear Programming Lecture Notes - Penn State Personal Web Server
Linear Programming Lecture Notes - Penn State Personal Web Server
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Clearly d ≥ 0 and d = 0.<br />
6. Extreme Points<br />
Definition 4.27 (Extreme Point of a Convex Set). Let C be a convex set. A point<br />
x0 ∈ C is a extreme point of C if there are no points x1 and x2 (x1 = x0 or x2 = x0) so that<br />
x = λx1 + (1 − λ)x2 for some λ ∈ (0, 1). 2<br />
An extreme point is simply a point in a convex set C that cannot be expressed as a strict<br />
convex combination of any other pair of points in C. We will see that extreme points must<br />
be located in specific locations in convex sets.<br />
Definition 4.28 (Boundary of a set). Let C ⊆ R n be (convex) set. A point x0 ∈ C is<br />
on the boundary of C if for all ɛ > 0,<br />
Bɛ(x0) ∩ C = ∅ and<br />
Bɛ(x0) ∩ R n \ C = ∅<br />
Example 4.29. A convex set, its boundary and a boundary point are illustrated in<br />
Figure 4.8.<br />
BOUNDARY POINT<br />
INTERIOR<br />
BOUNDARY<br />
Figure 4.8. Boundary Point: A boundary point of a (convex) set C is a point in<br />
the set so that for every ball of any radius centered at the point contains some points<br />
inside C and some points outside C.<br />
Lemma 4.30. Suppose C is a convex set. If x is an extreme point of C, then x is on the<br />
boundary of C.<br />
Proof. Suppose not, then x is not on the boundary and thus there is some ɛ > 0 so<br />
that Bɛ(x0) ⊂ C. Since Bɛ(x0) is a hypersphere, we can choose two points x1 and x2 on the<br />
boundary of Bɛ(x0) so that the line segment between these points passes through the center<br />
of Bɛ(x0). But this center point is x0. Therefore x0 is the mid-point of x1 and x2 and since<br />
x1, x2 ∈ C and λx1 + (1 − λ)x2 = x0 with λ = 1/2 it follows that x0 cannot be an extreme<br />
point, since it is a strict convex combination of x1 and x2. This completes the proof. <br />
Most important in our discussion of linear programming will be the extreme points of<br />
polyhedral sets that appear in linear programming problems. The following theorem establishes<br />
the relationship between extreme points in a polyhedral set and the intersection of<br />
hyperplanes in such a set.<br />
2 Thanks to Bob Pakzad-Hurson who fixed a typo in this definition in Version ≤ 1.4.<br />
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