Magic geometric constants are normalized average-distance values of compact connected subsets of Euclidean space containing at least two points. Let
be such a subset of
-dimensional Euclidean space.
Gross (1964) and Stadje (1981) proved that there is a unique real
number
such that for all
,
, ...,
, there exists
with
|
(1)
|
The magic constant of
is defined by
|
(2)
|
where
|
(3)
|
The number
is also called the rendezvous value, while
is a dispersion number. For any
, Gross (1964) and Stadje (1981) proved that
|
(4)
|
If
is a subinterval of the line and
is a circular disk in the plane,
then
|
(5)
|
If
is a circle, then
|
(6)
|
(OEIS A060294). An expression for the magic constant of an ellipse in terms of its semimajor
and semiminor axes lengths is not known. Nickolas
and Yost (1988) showed that for a Reuleaux triangle
|
(7)
|
Denote the maximum value of in
-dimensional space by
. Then
where
is the gamma function (Nickolas and Yost 1988).
The upper bound for
is 0.678442037... (Pillichshammer 2001).
An unrelated quantity characteristic of a given magic square is also known as a magic constant.