AbstractGiven a convex symmetric body C ⊂ ℝn we put a(C) = |C| sup |P|−1 where the supremum extends over all parallelepipeds containing C and |A| denotes the volume of a set A ⊂ ℝn. Let an = inf {a(C): C ⊂ ℝn}. We show thatwhich slightly improves the estimate due to Dvoretzky and Rogers [6]. In every dimension n we construct a convex symmetric polytope Wn such that the unit Euclidean ball is the ellipsoid of maximal volume inscribed into Wn and the volume of every parallelepiped containing Wn is greater thanfor large n which shows ‘the limit’ to the Dvoretzky Rogers method for bounding an below. We present an alternative proof of the result of I. K. Babenko [l] that . We show that , and that a local minimum of the function C→a(C) for C ⊂ ℝn is attained only at an equiframed convex body (that is, a body such that every point of its boundary belongs to a parallelepiped of minimal volume containing the body).
