Affine dependence 2026-10-31
An affine dependence of points is a nonzero coefficient family satisfying the displayed identities. Equivalently, the augmented vectors are linearly dependent. Both identities are independent of the chosen origin. The absence of an affine dependence is affine independence.
For , take the vertices of a regular simplex in , centered at zero and scaled so that . For example, realize them as
in the -dimensional vector subspace , identified isometrically with . These vertices are affinely independent.
Assign arbitrary desired signs , positive for inclusion. Affine independence implies that there is an affine function with for every : the interpolation conditions form an invertible linear system. For a sufficiently small , choose
At every vertex,
Thus the Euclidean ball contains exactly the positively labelled vertices, with none on its boundary. This construction also covers the all-positive and all-negative labellings. Therefore
Figure 1.
Closed Euclidean balls realize all eight labellings of three regular simplex vertices in the plane
. Filled blue points are inside each shaded disk; red crosses are outside. The same three points are used in every panel. Details.