Inscribable order types

Abstract

We call an order type inscribable if it is realized by a point configuration where the extreme points are all on a circle. In this paper, we investigate inscribability of order types. We first show that every simple order type with at most 2 interior points is inscribable, and that the number of such order types is $\Theta (\frac{4^n}{n^{3/2}})$. We further construct an infinite family of minimally uninscribable order types. The proof of uninscribability mainly uses Möbius transformations. We also suggest open problems around inscribability.