Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 March 2014
Topologists Nabutovsky and Weinberger discovered how to embed computably enumerable (c.e.) sets into the geometry of Riemannian metrics modulo diffeomorphisms. They used the complexity of the settling times of the c.e. sets to exhibit a much greater complexity of the depth and density of local minima for the diameter function than previously imagined. Their results depended on the existence of certain sequences of c.e. sets, constructed at their request by Csima and Soare, whose settling times had the necessary dominating properties. Although these computability results had been announced earlier, their proofs have been deferred until this paper.
Computably enumerable sets have long been used to prove undecidability of mathematical problems such as the word problem for groups and Hilbert's Tenth Problem. However, this example by Nabutovsky and Weinberger is perhaps the first example of the use of c.e. sets to demonstrate specific mathematical or geometric complexity of a mathematical structure such as the depth and distribution of local minima.
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.