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 on "N". The algorithm is recursive, and takes as arguments two (finite) sets of points and ; it computes the smallest enclosing circle of the union of and , as long as every point of is one of the boundary points of the eventual smallest enclosing circle. Thus, the original smallest enclosing circle problem can be solved by calling the algorithm with equal to the set of points to be enclosed and equal to the empty set; as the algorithm calls itself recursively, it will enlarge the set passed into the recursive calls until it includes all the boundary points