Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
426830 Information and Computation 2011 15 Pages PDF
Abstract

We exhibit a polynomial time computable plane curve Γ that has finite length, does not intersect itself, and is smooth except at one endpoint, but has the following property. For every computable parametrization f of Γ and every positive integer m, there is some positive-length subcurve of Γ that f retraces at least m times. In contrast, every computable curve of finite length that does not intersect itself has a constant-speed (hence non-retracing) parametrization that is computable relative to the halting problem.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Computer Science Computational Theory and Mathematics