Geometric Topology In Dimensions 2 And 3

Geometric topology may roughly be described as the branch of the topology of manifolds which deals with questions of the existence of homeomorphisms. Only in fairly recent years has this sort of topology achieved a sufficiently high development to be given a name, but its beginnings are easy to identify. The first classic result was the SchOnflies theorem (1910), which asserts that every 1-sphere in the plane is the boundary of a 2-cell. In the next few decades, the most notable affirmative results were the "Schonflies theorem" for polyhedral 2-spheres in space, proved by J. W. Alexander [Ad, and the triangulation theorem for 2-manifolds, proved by T. Rad6 [Rd. But the most striking results of the 1920s were negative. In 1921 Louis Antoine [A ] published an extraordinary paper in which he 4 showed that a variety of plausible conjectures in the topology of 3-space were false. Thus, a (topological) Cantor set in 3-space need not have a simply connected complement; therefore a Cantor set can be imbedded in 3-space in at least two essentially different ways; a topological 2-sphere in 3-space need not be the boundary of a 3-cell; given two disjoint 2-spheres in 3-space, there is not necessarily any third 2-sphere which separates them from one another in 3-space; and so on and on. The well-known "horned sphere" of Alexander [A ] appeared soon thereafter.

Geometric Topology contains the proceedings of the 1977 Georgia Topology Conference, held at the University of Georgia on August 1977. The book is comprised of contributions from leading experts in the field of geometric topology.These contributions are grouped into four sections: low dimensional manifolds, topology of manifolds, shape theory and infinite dimensional topology, and miscellaneous problems. Subjects discussed under these sections include local spanning missing loops, the structure of generalized manifolds having nonmanifold set of trivial dimension, universal open principal fibrations, and how to build a flexible polyhedral surface. Topologists, geometers, and mathematicians will find the book very interesting and insightful.

Geometric Topology is a foundational component of modern mathematics, involving the study of spacial properties and invariants of familiar objects such as manifolds and complexes. This volume, which is intended both as an introduction to the subject and as a wide ranging resouce for those already grounded in it, consists of 21 expository surveys written by leading experts and covering active areas of current research. They provide the reader with an up-to-date overview of this flourishing branch of mathematics.

This volume contains the refereed proceedings of the conference.

The inaugural volume in the popular AMS softcover series designed to make more widely available some of the outstanding lectures presented by various faculty in North America.

Suitable for students and researchers in topology. this work provides the reader with an understanding of the physical properties of Euclidean 3-space - the space in which we presume we live.