Homotopy type

Characteristic cohomology classes, defined in modulo 2 coefficients by Stiefel [26] and Whitney [28] and with integral coefficients by Pontrjagin [24], make up the primary source of first-order invariants of smooth manifolds. When their utility was first recognized, it became an obvious goal to study the ways in which they admitted extensions to other categories, such as the categories of topological or PL manifolds; perhaps a clean description of characteristic classes for simplicial complexes could even give useful computational techniques.

25p tuanloccuoi 04-01-2013 58 6   Download