The Geometry of the Bing Involution

Abstract

In 1952 Bing published a wild (not topologically conjugate to smooth) involution $I$ of the 3-sphere $S^3$. But exactly how wild is it, analytically? We prove that any involution $I^h$, topologically conjugate to $I$, must have a nearly exponential modulus of continuity. Specifically, given any $α>0$, there exists a sequence of $δ$'s converging to zero, $δ> 0$, and points $x,y \in S^3$ with dist$(x,y) < δ$, yet dist$(I^h(x), I^h(y)) > ε$, where $δ^{-1} = e^{\left(\frac{ε^{-1}}{\log^{(1+α)}(ε^{-1})}\right)}$, and dist is the usual Riemannian distance on $S^3$. In particular, $I^h$ stretches distance much more than a Lipschitz function ($δ^{-1} = cε^{-1}$) or a Hölder function ($δ^{-1} = c^\prime(ε^{-1})^{p}$, $1 < p < \infty$). Bing's original construction and known alternatives (see text) for $I$ have a modulus of continuity $δ^{-1} > c \sqrt{2}^{ε^{-1}}$, so the theorem is reasonably tight -- we prove the modulus must be at least exponential up to a polylog, whereas the truth may be fully exponential. Actually, the functional for $δ^{-1}$ coming out of the proof can be chosen slightly closer to exponential than stated here (see Theorem 1). Using the same technique we analyze a large class of ``ramified'' Bing involutions and show, as a scholium, that given any function $f: \mathbb{R}^+ \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^+$, no matter how rapid its growth, we can find a corresponding involution $J$ of the 3-sphere such that any topological conjugate $J^h$ of $J$ must have a modulus of continuity $δ^{-1}(ε^{-1})$ growing faster than $f$ (near infinity). There is a literature on inherent differentiability (references in text) but as far as the authors know the subject of inherent modulus of continuity is new.