In mathematics, the Loch Ness monster is a surface with infinite genus but only one end. It appeared named this way already in a 1981 article by Sullivan & Phillips (1981). The surface can be constructed by starting with a plane (which can be thought of as the surface of Loch Ness) and adding an infinite number of handles (which can be thought of as loops of the Loch Ness monster).
In mathematics, a Haken manifold is a compact, P²-irreducible 3-manifold that is sufficiently large, meaning that it contains a properly embedded two-sided incompressible surface. Sometimes one considers only orientable Haken manifolds, in which case a Haken manifold is a compact, orientable, irreducible 3-manifold that contains an orientable, incompressible surface.
Daniel Gray "Dan" Quillen was an American mathematician. He is known for being the "prime architect" of higher algebraic K-theory, for which he was awarded the Cole Prize in 1975 and the Fields Medal in 1978.
Sir Simon Kirwan Donaldson is an English mathematician known for his work on the topology of smooth (differentiable) four-dimensional manifolds, Donaldson–Thomas theory, and his contributions to Kähler geometry. He is currently a permanent member of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University in New York, and a Professor in Pure Mathematics at Imperial College London.
In the mathematical field of knot theory, the Jones polynomial is a knot polynomial discovered by Vaughan Jones in 1984. Specifically, it is an invariant of an oriented knot or link which assigns to each oriented knot or link a Laurent polynomial in the variable with integer coefficients.
The Tait conjectures are three conjectures made by 19th-century mathematician Peter Guthrie Tait in his study of knots. The Tait conjectures involve concepts in knot theory such as alternating knots, chirality, and writhe. All of the Tait conjectures have been solved, the most recent being the Flyping conjecture.
In mathematics, the J-homomorphism is a mapping from the homotopy groups of the special orthogonal groups to the homotopy groups of spheres. It was defined by George W. Whitehead (1942), extending a construction of Heinz Hopf (1935).
In mathematics, the Smith conjecture states that if f is a diffeomorphism of the 3-sphere of finite order, then the fixed point set of f cannot be a nontrivial knot.
In knot theory, a virtual knot is a generalization of knots in 3-dimensional Euclidean space, R3, to knots in thickened surfaces modulo an equivalence relation called stabilization/destabilization. Here is required to be closed and oriented. Virtual knots were first introduced by Kauffman (1999).
Dennis Parnell Sullivan is an American mathematician known for his work in algebraic topology, geometric topology, and dynamical systems. He holds the Albert Einstein Chair at the City University of New York Graduate Center and is a distinguished professor at Stony Brook University.
In mathematics, especially in the area of topology known as knot theory, an invertible knot is a knot that can be continuously deformed to itself, but with its orientation reversed. A non-invertible knot is any knot which does not have this property. The invertibility of a knot is a knot invariant. An invertible link is the link equivalent of an invertible knot.
In mathematics, the Bogomolov–Miyaoka–Yau inequality is the inequality
In mathematics, a Kato surface is a compact complex surface with positive first Betti number that has a global spherical shell. Kato (1978) showed that Kato surfaces have small analytic deformations that are the blowups of primary Hopf surfaces at a finite number of points. In particular they have an infinite cyclic fundamental group, and are never Kähler manifolds. Examples of Kato surfaces include Inoue-Hirzebruch surfaces and Enoki surfaces. The global spherical shell conjecture claims that all class VII surfaces with positive second Betti number are Kato surfaces.
Robert Wayne Thomason was an American mathematician who worked on algebraic K-theory. His results include a proof that all infinite loop space machines are in some sense equivalent, and progress on the Quillen–Lichtenbaum conjecture.
In mathematics, Jacob's ladder is a surface with infinite genus and two ends. It was named after Jacob's ladder by Étienne Ghys, because the surface can be constructed as the boundary of a ladder that is infinitely long in both directions.
In dynamical systems, the Cantor tree is an infinite-genus surface homeomorphic to a sphere with a Cantor set removed. The blooming Cantor tree is a Cantor tree with an infinite number of handles added in such a way that every end is a limit of handles.
In mathematics, the Mathai–Quillen formalism is an approach to topological quantum field theory introduced by Atiyah and Jeffrey (1990), based on the Mathai–Quillen form constructed in Mathai and Quillen (1986). In more detail, using the superconnection formalism of Quillen, they obtained a refinement of the Riemann–Roch formula, which links together the Thom classes in K-theory and cohomology, as an equality on the level of differential forms. This has an interpretation in physics as the computation of the classical and quantum (super) partition functions for the fermionic analogue of a harmonic oscillator with source term. In particular, they obtained a nice Gaussian shape representative of the Thom class in cohomology, which has a peak along the zero section.
In geometry, a quadrisecant or quadrisecant line of a space curve is a line that passes through four points of the curve. This is the largest possible number of intersections that a generic space curve can have with a line, and for such curves the quadrisecants form a discrete set of lines. Quadrisecants have been studied for curves of several different types:
In mathematics, the curve complex is a simplicial complex C(S) associated to a finite-type surface S, which encodes the combinatorics of simple closed curves on S. The curve complex turned out to be a fundamental tool in the study of the geometry of the Teichmüller space, of mapping class groups and of Kleinian groups. It was introduced by W.J.Harvey in 1978.
In mathematics, particularly algebraic topology, the Kan-Thurston theorem associates a discrete group to every path-connected topological space in such a way that the group cohomology of is the same as the cohomology of the space . The group might then be regarded as a good approximation to the space , and consequently the theorem is sometimes interpreted to mean that homotopy theory can be viewed as part of group theory.