The projection body of order one $\Pi_1K$ of a convex body $K$ in $\R^n$ is the body whose support function is, up to a constant, the average mean width of the orthogonal projections of $K$ onto hyperplanes through the origin. The paper contains an inequality for the support function of $\Pi_1K$, which implies in particular that such a function is strictly convex, unless $K$ has dimension one or two. Furthermore, an existence problem related to the reconstruction of a convex body is discussed to highlight the different behavior of the area measures of order one and of order $n-1$.

In this note we present inequalities relating the successive minima of an $o$-symmetric convex body and the successive inner and outer radii of the body. These inequalities join known inequalities involving only either the successive minima or the successive radii.

Let $K \subset {\mathbb{R}}^{n+1}$ be a convex body of class $C^2$ with everywhere positive Gauss curvature. We show that there exists a positive number $\delta (K)$ such that for any $\delta \in (0, \delta(K))$ we have $\Volu(K_{\delta})\cdot \Volu((K_{\delta})^{\sstar}) \geq \Volu(K)\cdot \Volu(K^{\sstar}) \geq \Volu(K^{\delta})\cdot \Volu((K^{\delta})^{\sstar})$, where $K_{\delta}$, $K^{\delta}$ and $K^{\sstar}$ stand for the convex floating body, the illumination body, and the polar of $K$, respectively. We derive a few consequences of these inequalities.

Given a centrally symmetric convex body $B$ in $\E^d,$ we denote by $\M^d(B)$ the Minkowski space ({\em i.e.,} finite dimensional Banach space) with unit ball $B.$ Let $K$ be an arbitrary convex body in $\M^d(B).$ The relationship between volume $V(K)$ and the Minkowskian thickness ($=$ minimal width) $\thns_B(K)$ of $K$ can naturally be given by the sharp geometric inequality $V(K) \ge \alpha(B) \cdot \thns_B(K)^d,$ where $\alpha(B)>0.$ As a simple corollary of the Rogers--Shephard inequality we obtain that $\binom{2d}{d}{}^{-1} \le \alpha(B)/V(B) \le 2^{-d}$ with equality on the left attained if and only if $B$ is the difference body of a simplex and on the right if $B$ is a cross-polytope. The main result of this paper is that for $d=2$ the equality on the right implies that $B$ is a parallelogram. The obtained results yield the sharp upper bound for the modified Banach--Mazur distance to the regular hexagon.

We study the farthest-point distance function, which measures the distance from $z \in \mathbb{C}$ to the farthest point or points of a given compact set $E$ in the plane. The logarithm of this distance is subharmonic as a function of $z$, and equals the logarithmic potential of a unique probability measure with unbounded support. This measure $\sigma_E$ has many interesting properties that reflect the topology and geometry of the compact set $E$. We prove $\sigma_E(E) \leq \frac12$ for polygons inscribed in a circle, with equality if and only if $E$ is a regular $n$-gon for some odd $n$. Also we show $\sigma_E(E) = \frac12$ for smooth convex sets of constant width. We conjecture $\sigma_E(E) \leq \frac12$ for all~$E$.