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H-cobordism
In geometric topology and differential topology, an (''n'' + 1)-dimensional cobordism ''W'' between ''n''-dimensional manifolds ''M'' and ''N'' is an ''h''-cobordism (the ''h'' stands for homotopy equivalence) if the inclusion maps : M \hookrightarrow W \quad\mbox\quad N \hookrightarrow W are homotopy equivalences. The ''h''-cobordism theorem gives sufficient conditions for an ''h''-cobordism to be trivial, i.e., to be C-isomorphic to the cylinder ''M'' × , 1 Here C refers to any of the categories of smooth, piecewise linear, or topological manifolds. The theorem was first proved by Stephen Smale for which he received the Fields Medal and is a fundamental result in the theory of high-dimensional manifolds. For a start, it almost immediately proves the generalized Poincaré conjecture. Background Before Smale proved this theorem, mathematicians became stuck while trying to understand manifolds of dimension 3 or 4, and assumed that the higher-dimensional cas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Smale
Stephen Smale (born July 15, 1930) is an American mathematician, known for his research in topology, dynamical systems and mathematical economics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 and spent more than three decades on the mathematics faculty of the University of California, Berkeley (1960–1961 and 1964–1995), where he currently is Professor Emeritus, with research interests in algorithms, numerical analysis and global analysis. Education and career Smale was born in Flint, Michigan and entered the University of Michigan in 1948. Initially, he was a good student, placing into an honors calculus sequence taught by Bob Thrall and earning himself A's. However, his sophomore and junior years were marred with mediocre grades, mostly Bs, Cs and even an F in nuclear physics. Smale obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in 1952. Despite his grades, with some luck, Smale was accepted as a graduate student at the University of Michigan's mathematics department. Yet again, Smale ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whitehead Torsion
In geometric topology, a field within mathematics, the obstruction to a homotopy equivalence f\colon X \to Y of finite CW-complexes being a simple homotopy equivalence is its Whitehead torsion \tau(f) which is an element in the Whitehead group \operatorname(\pi_1(Y)). These concepts are named after the mathematician J. H. C. Whitehead. The Whitehead torsion is important in applying surgery theory to non-simply connected manifolds of dimension > 4: for simply-connected manifolds, the Whitehead group vanishes, and thus homotopy equivalences and simple homotopy equivalences are the same. The applications are to differentiable manifolds, PL manifolds and topological manifolds. The proofs were first obtained in the early 1960s by Stephen Smale, for differentiable manifolds. The development of handlebody theory allowed much the same proofs in the differentiable and PL categories. The proofs are much harder in the topological category, requiring the theory of Robion Kirby and L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
4-manifold
In mathematics, a 4-manifold is a 4-dimensional topological manifold. A smooth 4-manifold is a 4-manifold with a smooth structure. In dimension four, in marked contrast with lower dimensions, topological and smooth manifolds are quite different. There exist some topological 4-manifolds which admit no smooth structure, and even if there exists a smooth structure, it need not be unique (i.e. there are smooth 4-manifolds which are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic). 4-manifolds are important in physics because in general relativity, spacetime is modeled as a pseudo-Riemannian 4-manifold. Topological 4-manifolds The homotopy type of a simply connected compact 4-manifold only depends on the intersection form on the middle dimensional homology. A famous theorem of implies that the homeomorphism type of the manifold only depends on this intersection form, and on a \Z/2\Z invariant called the Kirby–Siebenmann invariant, and moreover that every combination of unimodular form and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cobordism
In mathematics, cobordism is a fundamental equivalence relation on the class of compact space, compact manifolds of the same dimension, set up using the concept of the boundary (topology), boundary (French ''wikt:bord#French, bord'', giving ''cobordism'') of a manifold. Two manifolds of the same dimension are ''cobordant'' if their disjoint union is the ''boundary'' of a compact manifold one dimension higher. The boundary of an (n+1)-dimensional manifold W is an n-dimensional manifold \partial W that is closed, i.e., with empty boundary. In general, a closed manifold need not be a boundary: cobordism theory is the study of the difference between all closed manifolds and those that are boundaries. The theory was originally developed by René Thom for smooth manifolds (i.e., differentiable), but there are now also versions for Piecewise linear manifold, piecewise linear and topological manifolds. A ''cobordism'' between manifolds M and N is a compact manifold W whose boundary is th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whitney Embedding Theorem
In mathematics, particularly in differential topology, there are two Whitney embedding theorems, named after Hassler Whitney: *The strong Whitney embedding theorem states that any smooth real - dimensional manifold (required also to be Hausdorff and second-countable) can be smoothly embedded in the real -space, if . This is the best linear bound on the smallest-dimensional Euclidean space that all -dimensional manifolds embed in, as the real projective spaces of dimension cannot be embedded into real -space if is a power of two (as can be seen from a characteristic class argument, also due to Whitney). *The weak Whitney embedding theorem states that any continuous function from an -dimensional manifold to an -dimensional manifold may be approximated by a smooth embedding provided . Whitney similarly proved that such a map could be approximated by an immersion provided . This last result is sometimes called the Whitney immersion theorem. About the proof Weak embedding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Handle Decomposition
In mathematics, a handle decomposition of an ''m''-manifold ''M'' is a union \emptyset = M_ \subset M_0 \subset M_1 \subset M_2 \subset \dots \subset M_ \subset M_m = M where each M_i is obtained from M_ by the attaching of i-handles. A handle decomposition is to a manifold what a CW-decomposition is to a topological space—in many regards the purpose of a handle decomposition is to have a language analogous to CW-complexes, but adapted to the world of smooth manifolds. Thus an ''i''-handle is the smooth analogue of an ''i''-cell. Handle decompositions of manifolds arise naturally via Morse theory. The modification of handle structures is closely linked to Cerf theory. Motivation Consider the standard CW-decomposition of the ''n''-sphere, with one zero cell and a single ''n''-cell. From the point of view of smooth manifolds, this is a degenerate decomposition of the sphere, as there is no natural way to see the smooth structure of S^n from the eyes of this decomposition— ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geometric Topology
In mathematics, geometric topology is the study of manifolds and Map (mathematics)#Maps as functions, maps between them, particularly embeddings of one manifold into another. History Geometric topology as an area distinct from algebraic topology may be said to have originated in the 1935 classification of lens spaces by Reidemeister torsion, which required distinguishing spaces that are homotopy equivalent but not homeomorphic. This was the origin of simple homotopy, ''simple'' homotopy theory. The use of the term geometric topology to describe these seems to have originated rather recently. Differences between low-dimensional and high-dimensional topology Manifolds differ radically in behavior in high and low dimension. High-dimensional topology refers to manifolds of dimension 5 and above, or in relative terms, embeddings in codimension 3 and above. Low-dimensional topology is concerned with questions in dimensions up to 4, or embeddings in codimension up to 2. Dimensio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piecewise Linear Manifold
In mathematics, a piecewise linear manifold (PL manifold) is a topological manifold together with a piecewise linear structure on it. Such a structure can be defined by means of an atlas, such that one can pass from chart to chart in it by piecewise linear functions. This is slightly stronger than the topological notion of a triangulation. An isomorphism of PL manifolds is called a PL homeomorphism. Relation to other categories of manifolds PL, or more precisely PDIFF, sits between DIFF (the category of smooth manifolds) and TOP (the category of topological manifolds): it is categorically "better behaved" than DIFF — for example, the Generalized Poincaré conjecture is true in PL (with the possible exception of dimension 4, where it is equivalent to DIFF), but is false generally in DIFF — but is "worse behaved" than TOP, as elaborated in surgery theory. Smooth manifolds Smooth manifolds have canonical PL structures — they are uniquely ''triangulizable,'' by Whitehead's t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smooth Manifold
In mathematics, a differentiable manifold (also differential manifold) is a type of manifold that is locally similar enough to a vector space to allow one to apply calculus. Any manifold can be described by a collection of charts (atlas). One may then apply ideas from calculus while working within the individual charts, since each chart lies within a vector space to which the usual rules of calculus apply. If the charts are suitably compatible (namely, the transition from one chart to another is differentiable), then computations done in one chart are valid in any other differentiable chart. In formal terms, a differentiable manifold is a topological manifold with a globally defined differential structure. Any topological manifold can be given a differential structure locally by using the homeomorphisms in its atlas and the standard differential structure on a vector space. To induce a global differential structure on the local coordinate systems induced by the homeomorphisms, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poincaré Conjecture
In the mathematical field of geometric topology, the Poincaré conjecture (, , ) is a theorem about the characterization of the 3-sphere, which is the hypersphere that bounds the unit ball in four-dimensional space. Originally conjectured by Henri Poincaré in 1904, the theorem concerns spaces that locally look like ordinary three-dimensional space but which are finite in extent. Poincaré hypothesized that if such a space has the additional property that each loop in the space can be continuously tightened to a point, then it is necessarily a three-dimensional sphere. Attempts to resolve the conjecture drove much progress in the field of geometric topology during the 20th century. The eventual proof built upon Richard S. Hamilton's program of using the Ricci flow to solve the problem. By developing a number of new techniques and results in the theory of Ricci flow, Grigori Perelman was able to modify and complete Hamilton's program. In papers posted to the arXiv reposi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simple-homotopy Equivalence
In mathematics, particularly the area of topology, a simple-homotopy equivalence is a refinement of the concept of homotopy equivalence. Two CW-complexes are simple-homotopy equivalent if they are related by a sequence of collapses and expansions (inverses of collapses), and a homotopy equivalence is a simple homotopy equivalence if it is homotopic to such a map. The obstruction to a homotopy equivalence being a simple homotopy equivalence is the Whitehead torsion In geometric topology, a field within mathematics, the obstruction to a homotopy equivalence f\colon X \to Y of finite CW-complexes being a simple homotopy equivalence is its Whitehead torsion \tau(f) which is an element in the Whitehead group \ope ..., \tau(f). A homotopy theory that studies simple-homotopy types is called simple homotopy theory. See also * Discrete Morse theory References * Homotopy theory Equivalence (mathematics) {{topology-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
