Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2010
We study the minimal length of faithful nuclear representations of operators acting between finite-dimensional Banach spaces and the related minimal number of contact points of the John ellipsoid of maximal volume contained in the unit ball of a finite-dimensional Banach space. In both cases the classical upper estimates, which follow from the Caratheodory theorem, are shown to be exact. Related isometric characterizations of are proved.