# Gleason metric and CC distance

In the series of posts on Hilbert’s fifth problem, Terence Tao defines a Gleason metric, definition 4 here, which is a very important ingredient of the proof of the solution to H5 problem.

Here is Remark 1. from the post:

The escape and commutator properties are meant to capture “Euclidean-like” structure of the group. Other metrics, such as Carnot-Carathéodory metrics on Carnot Lie groups such as the Heisenberg group, usually fail one or both of these properties.

I want to explain why this is true. Look at the proof of theorem 7. The problem comes from the commutator estimate (1). I shall reproduce the relevant part of the proof because I don’t yet know how to write good-looking latex posts:

From the commutator estimate (1) and the triangle inequality we also obtain a conjugation estimate

$\displaystyle \| ghg^{-1} \| \sim \|h\|$

whenever ${\|g\|, \|h\| \leq \epsilon}$. Since left-invariance gives

$\displaystyle d(g,h) = \| g^{-1} h \|$

we then conclude an approximate right invariance

$\displaystyle d(gk,hk) \sim d(g,h)$

whenever ${\|g\|, \|h\|, \|k\| \leq \epsilon}$.

The conclusion is that the right translations in the group are Lipschitz (with respect to the Gleason metric). Because this distance (I use “distance” instead of “metric”) is also left invariant, it follows that left and right translations are Lipschitz.

Let now G be a connected Lie group with a left-invariant distribution, obtained by left translates of a vector space D included in the Lie algebra of G. The distribution is completely non-integrable if D generates the Lie algebra by using the + and Lie bracket operations. We put an euclidean norm on D and we get a CC distance on the group defined by: the CC distance between two elements of the group equals the infimum of lengths of horizontal (a.e. derivable, with the tangent in the distribution) curves joining the said points.

The remark 1 of Tao is a consequence of the following fact: if the CC distance is right invariant then D equals the Lie algebra of the group, therefore the distance is riemannian.

Here is why: in a sub-riemannian group (that is a group with a distribution and CC distance as explained previously) the left translations are Lipschitz (they are isometries) but not all right translations are Lipschitz, unless D equals the Lie algebra of G. Indeed, let us suppose that all right translations are Lipschitz. Then, by Margulis-Mostow version (see also this) of the Rademacher theorem , the right translation by an element “a” is Pansu derivable almost everywhere. It follows that the Pansu derivative of the right translation by “a” (in almost every point) preserves the distribution. A simple calculus based on invariance (truly, some explanations are needed here) shows that by consequence the adjoint action of “a” preserves D. Because “a” is arbitrary, this implies that D is an ideal of the Lie algebra. But D generates the Lie algebra, therefore D equals the Lie algebra of G.

If you know a shorter proof please let me know.

UPDATE: See the recent post 254A, Notes 4: Bulding metrics on groups, and the Gleason-Yamabe theorem by Terence Tao, for details of the role of the Gleason metric  in the proof of the Hilbert 5th problem.

# A difference which makes four differences, in two ways

Gregory Bateson , speaking about the map-territory relation

“What is in the territory that gets onto the map? […] What gets onto the map, in fact, is difference.

A difference is a very peculiar and obscure concept. It is certainly not a thing or an event. This piece of paper is different from the wood of this lectern. There are many differences between them, […] but if we start to ask about the localization of those differences, we get into trouble. Obviously the difference between the paper and the wood is not in the paper; it is obviously not in the wood; it is obviously not in the space between them .

A difference, then, is an abstract matter.

Difference travels from the wood and paper into my retina. It then gets picked up and worked on by this fancy piece of computing machinery in my head.

… what we mean by information — the elementary unit of information — is a difference which makes a difference.

(from “Form, Substance and Difference”, Nineteenth Annual Korzybski Memorial
Lecture delivered by Bateson on January 9, 1970, under the auspices of the Institute of General Semantics, re-printed from the General Semantics Bulletin, no.
37, 1970, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972))

This “difference which makes a difference” statement is quite famous, although sometimes considered only a figure of speach.

I think it is not, let me show you why!

For me a difference can be interpreted as an operator which relates images of the same thing (from the territory) viewed in two different maps, like in the following picture:

This figure is taken from “Computing with space…” , see section 1 “The map is the territory” for drawing conventions.

Forget now about maps and territories and concentrate on this diagram viewed as a decorated tangle. The rules of decorations are the following: arcs are decorated with “x,y,…”, points from a space, and the crossings are decorated with epsilons, elements of a commutative group (secretly we use an emergent algebra, or an uniform idempotent right quasigroup, to decorate arcs AND crossings of a tangle diagram).

What we see is a tangle which appears in the Reidemeister move 3 from knot theory. When epsilons are fixed, this diagram defines a function called (approximate) difference.

Is this a difference which makes a difference?

Yes, in two ways:

1. We could add to this diagram an elementary unknot passing under all arcs, thus obtaining the diagram

Now we see four differences in this equivalent tangle: the initial one is made by three others.
The fact that a difference is selfsimilar is equivalent with the associativity of the INVERSE of the approximate difference operation, called approximate sum.

2. Let us add an elementary unknot over the arcs of the tangle diagram, like in the following figure

called “difference inside a chora” (you have to read the paper to see why). According to the rules of tangle diagrams, adding unknots does not change the tangle topologically (although this is not quite true in the realm of emergent algebras, where the Reidemeister move 3 is an acceptable move only in the limit, when passing with the crossing decorations to “zero”).

By using only Reidemeister moves 1 and 2, we can turn this diagram into the celtic looking figure

which shows again four differences: the initial one in the center and three others around.

This time we got a statement saying that a difference is preserved under “infinitesimal parallel transport”.

So, indeed, a difference makes four differences, in at least two ways, for a mathematician.

If you want to understand more from this crazy post, read the paper 🙂

# Maps of metric spaces

This is a pedagogical introduction covering maps of metric spaces, Gromov-Hausdorff distance and its “physical” meaning, and dilation structures as a convenient simplification of an exhaustive database of maps of a metric space into another:

Maps of metric spaces

The material is taken and slightly adapted from the long paper “Computing with space”, check for updates of this on this page.

# Hilbert fifth’s problem without one parameter subgroups

Further I reproduce, with small modifications, a comment   to the post

Locally compact groups with faithful finite-dimensional representations

by Terence Tao.

My motivation lies in the  project   described first time in public here.  In fact, one of the reasons to start this blog is to have a place where I can leisurely explain stuff.

Background:    The answer to the  Hilbert fifth’s problem  is: a connected locally compact group without small subgroups is a Lie group.

The key idea of the proof is to study the space of one parameter subgroups of the topological group. This space turns out to be a good model of the tangent space at the neutral element of the group (eventually) and the effort goes towards turning upside-down this fact, namely to prove that this space is a locally compact topological vector space and the “exponential map”  gives a chart  of  (a neighbourhood of the neutral element of ) the group into this space.

Because I am a fan of differential structures   (well, I think they are only the commutative, boring side of dilation structures  or here or emergent algebras)   I know a situation when one can prove the fact that a topological group is a Lie group without using the one parameter subgroups!

Here starts the original comment, slightly modified:

Contractive automorphisms may be as relevant as one-parameter subgroups for building a Lie group structure (or even more), as shown by the following result from E. Siebert, Contractive Automorphisms on Locally Compact Groups, Math. Z. 191, 73-90 (1986)

5.4. Proposition. For a locally compact group G the following assertions are equivalent:
(i) G admits a contractive automorphism group;
(ii) G is a simply connected Lie group whose Lie algebra g admits a positive graduation.

The corresponding result for local groups is proved in L. van den Dries, I. Goldbring, Locally Compact Contractive Local Groups, arXiv:0909.4565v2.

I used Siebert result for proving the Lie algebraic structure of the metric tangent space to a sub-riemannian manifold in M. Buliga, Infinitesimal affine geometry of metric spaces endowed with a dilatation structure, Houston Journal of Mathematics, 36, 1 (2010), 91-136. arXiv:0804.0135v2

(added here: see  in Corollary 6.3 from “Infinitesimal affine …” paper, as well as Proposition 5.9 and Remark 5.10 from the paper  A characterization of sub-riemannian spaces as length dilation structures constructed via coherent projections, Commun. Math. Anal. 11 (2011), No. 2, pp. 70-111 , arXiv:0810.5042v4 )

When saying that contractive automorphisms, or approximately contractive automorphisms [i.e. dilation structures], may be more relevant than one-parameter subgroups, I am thinking about sub-riemannian geometry again, where a one-parameter subgroup of a group, endowed with a left-invariant distribution and a corresponding Carnot-Caratheodory distance, is “smooth” (with respect to Pansu-type derivative) if and only if the generator is in the distribution. Metrically speaking, if the generator  is not in the distribution then any trajectory of the one-parameter group has Hausdorff dimension greater than one. That means lots of problems with the definition of the exponential and any reasoning based on differentiating flows.

# Book project: Metric spaces with dilations

On the mathematics front, here is a link to a book project

Metric spaces with dilations

(working version! chech for updates)

As it is now, it’s not much more than a merger of previous research papers, without the nice figures from “Computing with space…” , but from seeing all in one place you may get a sense of what is this all about.

This first version has been prepared as a basis for the minicourse

“Carnot-Caratheodory spaces as metric spaces with dilations”

held at a January 2011 Summer School in Rio de Janeiro.

In the same place I started being interested in exploring this frontier between neuroscience and mathematics…