In \cite{GrOrang}, Gromov asks the following question: given a nullhomotopic map $f:S^m \to S^n$ of Lipschitz constant $L$, how does the Lipschitz constant of an optimal nullhomotopy of $f$ depend on $L$, $m$, and $n$? We establish that for fixed $m$ and $n$, the answer is at worst quadratic in $L$. More precisely, we construct a nullhomotopy whose \emph{thickness} (Lipschitz constant in the space variable) is $C(m,n)(L+1)$ and whose \emph{width} (Lipschitz constant in the time variable) is $C(m,n)(L+1)^2$. More generally, we prove a similar result for maps $f:X \to Y$ for any compact Riemannian manifold $X$ and $Y$ a compact simply connected Riemannian manifold in a class which includes complex projective spaces, Grassmannians, and all other simply connected homogeneous spaces. Moreover, for all simply connected $Y$, asymptotic restrictions on the size of nullhomotopies are determined by rational homotopy type.

For a given null-cobordant Riemannian n n -manifold, how does the minimal geometric complexity of a null-cobordism depend on the geometric complexity of the manifold? Gromov has conjectured that this dependence should be linear. We show that it is at most a polynomial whose degree depends on n n . In the appendix the bound is improved to one that is O ( L 1 + ε ) O(L^{1+\varepsilon }) for every ε > 0 \varepsilon >0 .

This construction relies on another of independent interest. Take X X and Y Y to be sufficiently nice compact metric spaces, such as Riemannian manifolds or simplicial complexes. Suppose Y Y is simply connected and rationally homotopy equivalent to a product of Eilenberg–MacLane spaces, for example, any simply connected Lie group. Then two homotopic L L -Lipschitz maps f , g : X → Y f,g:X \to Y are homotopic via a C L CL -Lipschitz homotopy. We present a counterexample to show that this is not true for larger classes of spaces Y Y .