In 1969, Vic Klee asked whether a convex body is uniquely determined (up to translation and reflection in the origin) by its inner section function, the function giving for each direction the maximal area of sections of the body by hyperplanes orthogonal to that direction. We answer this question in the negative by constructing two infinitely smooth convex bodies of revolution about the xn-axis in Rn, n  3, one origin symmetric and the other not centrally symmetric, with the same inner section function. Moreover, the pair of bodies can be arbitrarily close to the unit ball.

We extend Donaldson’s diagonalization theorem to intersection forms with certain local coefficients, under some constraints. This provides new examples of non-smoothable topological 4-manifolds.

We consider surfaces with parallel mean curvature vector (pmc surfaces) in complex space forms and introduce a holomorphic differential on such surfaces. When the complex dimension of the ambient space is equal to two we find a second holomorphic differential and then determine those pmc surfaces on which both differentials vanish. We also provide a reduction of codimension theorem and prove a non-existence result for pmc 2-spheres in complex space forms.

We consider an ancient solution g(·, t) of the Ricci flow on a compact surface that exists for t 2 (−1, T ) and becomes spherical at time t = T . We prove that the metric g(·, t) is either a family of contracting spheres, which is a type I ancient solution, or a King–Rosenau solution, which is a type II ancient solution.

We present a brief but nearly self-contained proof of a formula for the Weil-Petersson Hessian of the geodesic length of a closed curve (either simple or not simple) on a hyperbolic surface. The formula is the sum of the integrals of two naturally defined positive functions over the geodesic, proving convexity of this functional over Teichmuller space (due to Wolpert (1987)). We then estimate this Hessian from below in terms of local quantities and distance along the geodesic. The formula extends to proper arcs on punctured hyperbolic surfaces, and the estimate to laminations. Wolpert’s result that the Thurston metric is a multiple of the Weil-Petersson metric directly follows on taking a limit of the formula over an appropriate sequence of curves. We give further applications to upper bounds of the Hessian, especially near pinching loci, recover through a geometric argumentWolpert’s result on the convexity of length to the half-power, and give a lower bound for growth of length in terms of twist.