Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4660627 | Topology and its Applications | 2007 | 12 Pages |
Abstract
The distortion of a curve is the supremum, taken over distinct pairs of points of the curve, of the ratio of arclength to spatial distance between the points. Gromov asked in 1981 whether a curve in every knot type can be constructed with distortion less than a universal constant C. Answering Gromov's question seems to require the construction of lower bounds on the distortion of knots in terms of some topological invariant. We attempt to make such bounds easier to construct by showing that pairs of points with high distortion are very common on curves of minimum length in the set of curves in a given knot type with distortion bounded above and distortion thickness bounded below.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Mathematics
Geometry and Topology