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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2015
We develop a condition on a closed curve on a surface or in a 3-manifold that implies that the length function associated to the curve on the space of all hyperbolic structures on the surface or in the 3-manifold (respectively) completely determines the curve. Specifically, for an orientable surface S of negative Euler characteristic, we extend the known result that simple curves have this property to curves with self-intersection number one (with one exceptional case arising from hyperellipticity that we describe completely). For a large class of hyperbolizable 3-manifolds, we show that curves freely homotopic to simple curves on ∂M have this property.