Some results on monotone metric spaces (Q2338714)

Let \(c\geq 1\) be a real constant. Following the first author and \textit{O. Zindulka} [Order 29, No. 3, 545--558 (2012; Zbl 1260.54045)] a metric space \((X,\rho)\) is called a \(c\)-monotone metric space if there exists a linear order \(\prec\) on \(X\) such that \(\rho(x, y)\leq c\cdot\rho(x, z)\) whenever \(x\prec y\prec z\). \((X,\rho)\) is said to be monotone if it is \(c\)-monotone for some \(c\geq 1\). The main theorem of this paper concerns 1-monotone subspaces of Euclidean spaces \(\mathbb{R}^n\). It is shown that, if \(A\) is a bounded 1-monotone subspace of \(\mathbb{R}^n\), then the one-dimensional Hausdorff measure of \(A\) is finite. It follows that, if \(\Gamma:[0, 1]\to\mathbb{R}^n\) is a continuous curve, then the one-dimensional Hausdorff measure of the graph of \(\Gamma\) is finite if and only if \(\Gamma\) is a linear combination of continuous curves with 1-monotone graphs. The other main contributions of the paper are two examples. The first is a continuous function \(f: [0, 1]\to\mathbb{R}\) with the property that, if \(A\subset[0, 1]\) and the graph of \(f|_A\) is a monotone subspace of the plane, then (the Lebesgue measure) \(\lambda(A)=0\) and \(A\) is nowhere dense. The second example pertains to symmetrically \(c\)-monotone metric spaces, i.e., metric spaces \((X,\rho)\) for which there exists a linear order \(\prec\) on \(X\) such that \(\rho(x,y)\leq c\cdot\rho(x, z)\) and \(\rho(z,y)\leq c\cdot\rho(z,x)\) whenever \(x\prec y\prec z\). Given an arbitrary constant \(c>1\), the authors show how to construct a continuous function \(f: [0,1]\to\mathbb{R}\) that satisfies: (i) \(f\in C^\infty(0,1]\) and \(f'(0)=0\), (ii) \(f\) has unbounded variation, and (iii) the graph of \(f\) is a symmetrically \(c\)-monotone subspace of the plane.