In 1948 Besicovitch proved that an affine image of a regular hexagon may be inscribed into an arbitrary planar convex body. We prove Besicovitch's result using a variational approach based on special approximation by triangles and generalize the Besicovitch theorem to a certain new class of hexagons. We survey the results on the Banach-Mazur distance between different classes of convex bodies. We hope that our generalization of the Besicovitch theorem may become useful for estimation of the Banach-Mazur distance between planar convex bodies. We examined our special approximation by triangles in some specific cases, and it showed a noticeable improvement in comparison with known general methods. We also consider the Banach-Mazur distance between a simplex and an arbitrary convex body in the three-dimensional case. Using the idea of an inscribed simplex of maximal volume, we obtain a certain related algebraic optimization problem that provides an upper estimate.

In 1948 Besicovitch proved that an affine image of a regular hexagon may be inscribed into an arbitrary planar convex body. We prove Besicovitch's result using a variational approach based on special approximation by triangles and generalize the Besicovitch theorem to a certain new class of hexagons. We survey the results on the Banach-Mazur distance between different classes of convex bodies. We hope that our generalization of the Besicovitch theorem may become useful for estimation of the Banach-Mazur distance between planar convex bodies. We examined our special approximation by triangles in some specific cases, and it showed a noticeable improvement in comparison with known general methods. We also consider the Banach-Mazur distance between a simplex and an arbitrary convex body in the three-dimensional case. Using the idea of an inscribed simplex of maximal volume, we obtain a certain related algebraic optimization problem that provides an upper estimate.