Total curvature and spiralling shortest paths (Q1423577)

Extrinsic geometric properties of shortest paths on convex polyhedral surfaces in \(R^3\) are investigated. As an example, a polyhedron is contructed which contains a shortest path whose total curvature (angle of curve turning) exceedes \(2\pi\). Also polyhedra which contain shortest paths with sufficiently large spiralling number are constructed. A uniform estimation from above for the turning angle of shortest paths is found for a particular class of polyhedra whose diameters do not differ considerably from their widths.