A solution to Ringel's circle problem

12/09/2021

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by   James Davies, et al.

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We construct families of circles in the plane such that their tangency graphs have arbitrarily large girth and chromatic number. This provides a strong negative answer to Ringel's circle problem (1959). The proof relies on a (multidimensional) version of Gallai's theorem with polynomial constraints, which we derive from the Hales-Jewett theorem and which may be of independent interest.