'Ht moi, ..., si j'avait su comment en revenir, One lemce mathematics has rendered the je n'y serai. point aile.' human race. It has put common sense back Jule. Verne ..... "'" it belong., on the topmost shelf next to the dusty caniller labelled 'discarded non- The series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. able to do something with it. Eric T. Bell O. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d' re of this series."

1. Preliminaries, Notation, and Terminology n n 1.1. Sets and functions in lR. * Throughout the book, lR. stands for the n-dimensional arithmetic space of points x = (X},X2,'" ,xn)j Ixl is the length of n n a vector x E lR. and (x, y) is the scalar product of vectors x and y in lR. , i.e., for x = (Xl, X2, *.* , xn) and y = (y}, Y2,**., Yn), Ixl = Jx~ + x~ + ...+ x~, (x, y) = XIYl + X2Y2 + ...+ XnYn. n Given arbitrary points a and b in lR. , we denote by [a, b] the segment that joins n them, i.e. the collection of points x E lR. of the form x = >.a + I'b, where>. + I' = 1 and >. ~ 0, I' ~ O. n We denote by ei, i = 1,2, ...,n, the vector in lR. whose ith coordinate is equal to 1 and the others vanish. The vectors el, e2, ...,en form a basis for the space n lR. , which is called canonical. If P( x) is some proposition in a variable x and A is a set, then {x E A I P(x)} denotes the collection of all the elements of A for which the proposition P( x) is true.

One service mathematics has rendered the "Et moi, .... si j'a\'ait su comment en revenir, human race. It has put common sense back je n'y scrais point alit: Jules Verne where it belongs, on the topmost shelf next to the dusty canister labc\led 'discarded non The series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. Eric T. 8c\l able to do something with it. O. Hcaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d'etre of this series."

The book contains a survey of research on non-regular Riemannian geome try, carried out mainly by Soviet authors. The beginning of this direction oc curred in the works of A. D. Aleksandrov on the intrinsic geometry of convex surfaces. For an arbitrary surface F, as is known, all those concepts that can be defined and facts that can be established by measuring the lengths of curves on the surface relate to intrinsic geometry. In the case considered in differential is defined by specifying its first geometry the intrinsic geometry of a surface fundamental form. If the surface F is non-regular, then instead of this form it is convenient to use the metric PF' defined as follows. For arbitrary points X, Y E F, PF(X, Y) is the greatest lower bound of the lengths of curves on the surface F joining the points X and Y. Specification of the metric PF uniquely determines the lengths of curves on the surface, and hence its intrinsic geometry. According to what we have said, the main object of research then appears as a metric space such that any two points of it can be joined by a curve of finite length, and the distance between them is equal to the greatest lower bound of the lengths of such curves. Spaces satisfying this condition are called spaces with intrinsic metric. Next we introduce metric spaces with intrinsic metric satisfying in one form or another the condition that the curvature is bounded."

'Ht moi, ..., si j'avait su comment en revenir, One lemce mathematics has rendered the je n'y serai. point aile.' human race. It has put common sense back Jule. Verne ..... "'" it belong., on the topmost shelf next to the dusty caniller labelled 'discarded non- The series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. able to do something with it. Eric T. Bell O. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d' re of this series."

One service mathematics has rendered the "Et moi, .... si j'a\'ait su comment en revenir, human race. It has put common sense back je n'y scrais point alit: Jules Verne where it belongs, on the topmost shelf next to the dusty canister labc\led 'discarded non The series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. Eric T. 8c\l able to do something with it. O. Hcaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d'etre of this series."

1. Preliminaries, Notation, and Terminology n n 1.1. Sets and functions in lR. * Throughout the book, lR. stands for the n-dimensional arithmetic space of points x = (X},X2,'" ,xn)j Ixl is the length of n n a vector x E lR. and (x, y) is the scalar product of vectors x and y in lR. , i.e., for x = (Xl, X2, *.* , xn) and y = (y}, Y2,**., Yn), Ixl = Jx~ + x~ + ...+ x~, (x, y) = XIYl + X2Y2 + ...+ XnYn. n Given arbitrary points a and b in lR. , we denote by [a, b] the segment that joins n them, i.e. the collection of points x E lR. of the form x = >.a + I'b, where>. + I' = 1 and >. ~ 0, I' ~ O. n We denote by ei, i = 1,2, ...,n, the vector in lR. whose ith coordinate is equal to 1 and the others vanish. The vectors el, e2, ...,en form a basis for the space n lR. , which is called canonical. If P( x) is some proposition in a variable x and A is a set, then {x E A I P(x)} denotes the collection of all the elements of A for which the proposition P( x) is true.

This book contains two surveys on modern research into non-regular Riemannian geometry, carried out mostly by Russian mathematicians. Coverage examines two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds of bounded curvature and metric spaces whose curvature lies between two given constants. This book will be immensely useful to graduate students and researchers in geometry, in particular Riemannian geometry.