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Abstract: This paper studies separating subsets of an invariant ring or, more generally, of any set consisting of functions. We prove that a subset of a finitely generated algebra always contains a finite separating subset. We also show that a general version of Noether’s degree bound holds for separating invariants, independently of the characteristic. While the general finiteness result is non-constructive, the Noether bound provides an easy algorithm for computing separating invariants of finite groups. The paper also contains a conceptual investigation of the difference between separating and generating subsets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

One way to characterize configurations of points up to congruence is by considering the distribution of all mutual distances between points. This paper deals with the question if point configurations are uniquely determined by this distribution. After giving some counterexamples, we prove that this is the case for the vast majority of configurations.In the second part of the paper, the distribution of areas of sub-triangles is used for characterizing point configurations. Again it turns out that most configurations are reconstructible from the distribution of areas, though there are counterexamples. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]