Continent continent. From this perspective, the edge of the continental shelf is the true edge of the continent, as shorelines vary with changes in sea level. In this sense the islands of Great Britain and Ireland are part of Europe, while Australia and the island of New Guinea together form a continent. As a cultural construct, the concept of a continent may go beyond the continental shelf to include oceanic islands and continental fragments. In this way, Iceland is considered part of Europe and Madagascar part of Africa. Extrapolating the concept to its extreme, some geographers group the Australian continental plate
Smallest-circle problem Smallest-circle problem The smallest-circle problem or minimum covering circle problem is a mathematical problem of computing the smallest circle that contains all of a given set of points in the Euclidean plane. The corresponding problem in "n"-dimensional space, the smallest bounding-sphere problem, is to compute the smallest "n"-sphere that contains all of a given set of points. The smallest-circle problem was initially proposed by the English mathematician James Joseph Sylvester in 1857. The smallest-circle problem in the plane is an example of a facility location problem (the 1-center problem) in which the location of a new facility must be chosen