Dear GAP Forum,

Let F be a free group of rank 2 and let w be a word in the derived subgroup
F'. The square length of w is defined as a smallest integer n such that w
is a product of n squares in F. There is an algorithm for computing the
square length of a given word; it is described in

Goldstein, Richard Z.; Turner, Edward C.
Applications of topological graph theory to group theory.
Math. Z. 165 (1979), no. 1, 1--10.

Does anyone have the implementation of this (or similar) algorithm in GAP?
Is there any algorithm for computing the square length of a given word
which doesn't use graphs?

Regards,
Primoz.

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Primoz Moravec
Institute of mathematics, physics
and mechanics
Jadranska 19
SI-1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia

email: primoz.moravec@fmf.uni-lj.si
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