Hausdorff dimension of wiggly metric spaces (Q2018119)

Let \(X\) be a compact connected metric space. Answering a question of \textit{C. J. Bishop} and \textit{J. T. Tyson} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 129, No. 12, 3631--3636 (2001; Zbl 0972.30010)], the author shows that if every ball of \(X\) deviates from a geodesic by at least a uniform amount, then \(X\) has dimension strictly bigger than \(1\). This applies, in particular, to a class of antenna-like (but not necessarily self-similar) sets. The geodesic deviation is measured by a quantity \(\hat\beta\) introduced by Bishop and Tyson [loc. cit.] or, in the main body of the argument, by a variant \(\beta'\), which refers to curves in an ambient space \(\ell^\infty\supset X\) after Kuratowski's embedding theorem. Both \(\hat\beta\) and \(\beta'\) are relatives of the Jones \(\beta\)-numbers in a Hilbert space, and satisfy \(\beta'\leq\beta\), \(\hat\beta\lesssim(\beta')^{1/2}\). The proof makes use of dyadic cube-type structures (with standard nestedness but imperfect covering properties), which induce refining piecewise affine approximations of curves in the space. Via a construction of a suitable Frostman measure, the dimensional lower bound ultimately follows from a counting estimate of points in a discrete net in \(X\). Several concepts and constructions are nicely illustrated by pictures.