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In the lecture Notions of Scalar Curvature - IAS around 8:00, Gromov states the following result, which he claims he does "slightly uncarefully":

Suppose $(X,g_X)$ and $(Y,g_Y)$ are Riemannian manifolds, their sectional curvature satisfy $\sec(Y,g_Y)\leq \kappa\leq \sec(X,g_X)$ for some $\kappa\in\mathbb{R}$, and $X_0$ is a subset of $X$. If $f_0:X_0\to Y$ is a map with Lipschitz constant $1$, then there exists a map $f:X\to Y$ with Lipschitz constant $1$ that extends $f_0$, i.e. $f|_{X_0}=f_0$.

He mentions a few names before stating the result, but I cannot make out who they are.

He then discusses how this can be used to motivate a definition of "curvature" in the category of metric spaces with distance non-increasing maps, "except, of course, for normalization."

Does anyone know where I can read more about this? (Either in the setting of metric spaces or in the smooth setting of Riemannian manifolds.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Since no one else has mentioned it yet, have you checked Gromov's website? ihes.fr/~gromov $\endgroup$
    – Logan Fox
    Jul 25, 2020 at 8:11

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I can give a partial answer. The theorem you quote is a generalization of Kirszbraun's theorem (which covers the case where $X$ and $Y$ are Hilbert spaces), and a special case of a beautiful theorem of Lang and Schroeder (which applies to general metric spaces with synthetic curvature bounds defined via triangle comparison). These are the names Gromov mentions.

Personally, I do not know of a theory that takes this Lipschitz extension property as a definition of curvature, but that is likely my ignorance.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for your response. I will add a more recent development due to Alexander, Kapovitch, and Petrunin, in case it is useful to anyone: arxiv.org/abs/1012.5636 $\endgroup$ Mar 15 at 15:11

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