Word.ws English Dictionary

Sylvester-Gallai theorem

Sylvester-Gallai theorem proper noun: a theorem stating that, given a finite number of points in the Euclidean plane, either all the points lie on a single line, or there is at least one line which contains exactly two of the points.

Proper noun

Sylvester-Gallai theorem

  1. A theorem stating that, given a finite number of points in the Euclidean plane, either all the points lie on a single line, or there is at least one line which contains exactly two of the points.

Origin of Sylvester-Gallai theorem

Named after James Joseph Sylvester, who posed it as a problem in 1893, and Tibor Gallai, who published one of the first proofs of this theorem in 1944.

Questions about Sylvester-Gallai theorem

What does Sylvester-Gallai theorem mean?
Sylvester-Gallai theorem means a theorem stating that, given a finite number of points in the Euclidean plane, either all the points lie on a single line, or there is at least one line which contains exactly two of the points.
What part of speech is Sylvester-Gallai theorem?
Sylvester-Gallai theorem is a proper noun.

Words near Sylvester-Gallai theorem in the dictionary

  1. sylvester
  2. Sylvester equation
  3. Sylvester equations
  4. Sylvester's criterion
  5. Sylvester's formula
  6. Sylvester-Gallai theorem
  7. sylvesters
  8. sylvestrene
  9. sylvestrian
  10. Sylvestrine
  11. Sylvestrines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Sylvester-Gallai theorem (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Sylvester-Gallai theorem.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sylvester-gallai_theorem. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.