We prove that if some balls in the Euclidean space move continuously in such a way that the distances between their centers decrease, then the volume of their union cannot increase. The proof is based on a formula expressing the derivative of the volume of the union as a linear combination of the derivatives of the distances between the centers with nonnegative coefficients.

A bicycle ( n , k )-gon is an equilateral n -gon whose k -diagonals are equal. S. Tabach-nikov proved that a regular n -gon is first-order flexible as a bicycle ( n , k )-gon if and only if there is an integer 2 ≦ r ≦ n -2 such that tan (π/ n ) tan ( kr π/ n ) = tan ( k π/ n ) tan ( r π/ n ). In the present paper, we solve this trigonometric diophantine equation. In particular, we describe the family of first order flexible regular bicycle polygons.

Let K be a convex body with C 2 boundary in the Euclidean d-space. Following the work of L. Fejes Tóth, R. Vitale, R. Schneider, P.M. Gruber, S. Glasauer and M. Ludwig, best approximation of K by polytopes of restricted number of vertices or facets is wellunderstood if the approximation is with respect to the volume or the mean width. In this paper we consider the circumscribed polytope P (n) of n facets with minimal surface area, and present an asymptotic formula in terms of n for the difference of surface areas of P (n) and K.

H. Hotelling proved that, in the n-dimensional Euclidean or spherical space, the volume of a tube of small radius about a curve depends only on the length of the curve and the radius. A. Gray and L. Vanhecke extended Hotelling's theorem to rank 1 symmetric spaces, computing the volumes of the tubes explicitly in these spaces. In the present paper, we generalize these results by showing that every harmonic manifold has the above tube property. We compute the volume of tubes in the Damek-Ricci spaces. We show that if a Riemannian manifold has the tube property, then it is a 2-stein D'Atri space. We also prove that a symmetric space has the tube property if and only if it is harmonic. Our results answer some questions posed by L. Vanhecke, T. J. Willmore, and G. Thorbergsson.

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