Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2009
A flat spot in a Banach space X is an element x ∈ Sx = {x ∈ X: ‖x‖ = 1} with the property that the infimum m(x) of the lengths of all curves in Sx joining x to −x is 2. Flat spots occur in every non-superreflexive space when suitably renormed. A study is made of the geometric implications of the existence of flat spots. Connections with other notions such as differentiability, decomposition constants and Kadec-Klee norms are explored and some renorming results for non-superreflexive spaces are proved.