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Topology

Topology studies the properties of objects that remain unchanged under continuous transformations like stretching and bending. It focuses on properties like connectivity rather than exact shapes. For example, a square and circle have the same topological properties like separating a plane into two parts, despite having different geometrical shapes. The Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem led to graph theory and showed results could depend on connectivity rather than sizes or distances. Similarly, the hairy ball theorem states there is no non-vanishing vector field on a sphere, showing properties are unchanged under smooth deformations that do not add or remove holes. Topology aims to formalize these properties through notions of homeomorphisms and homotopy equivalences that capture transformations objects can undergo while keeping

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Polygraph Sharikov
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328 views1 page

Topology

Topology studies the properties of objects that remain unchanged under continuous transformations like stretching and bending. It focuses on properties like connectivity rather than exact shapes. For example, a square and circle have the same topological properties like separating a plane into two parts, despite having different geometrical shapes. The Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem led to graph theory and showed results could depend on connectivity rather than sizes or distances. Similarly, the hairy ball theorem states there is no non-vanishing vector field on a sphere, showing properties are unchanged under smooth deformations that do not add or remove holes. Topology aims to formalize these properties through notions of homeomorphisms and homotopy equivalences that capture transformations objects can undergo while keeping

Uploaded by

Polygraph Sharikov
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Topology can be formally defined as "the study of qualitative properties of certain

objects (called topological spaces) that are invariant under a certain kind of
transformation (called a continuous map), especially those properties that are
invariant under a certain kind of invertible transformation (called
homeomorphisms)."

Topology is also used to refer to a structure imposed upon a set X, a structure


that essentially characterizes the set X as a topological space by taking proper
care of properties such as convergence, connectedness and continuity, upon
transformation.

Topological spaces show up naturally in almost every branch of mathematics. This


has made topology one of the great unifying ideas of mathematics.

The motivating insight behind topology is that some geometric problems depend not
on the exact shape of the objects involved, but rather on the way they are put
together. For example, the square and the circle have many properties in common:
they are both one dimensional objects (from a topological point of view) and both
separate the plane into two parts, the part inside and the part outside.

In one of the first papers in topology, Leonhard Euler demonstrated that it was
impossible to find a route through the town of K�nigsberg (now Kaliningrad) that
would cross each of its seven bridges exactly once. This result did not depend on
the lengths of the bridges or on their distance from one another, but only on
connectivity properties: which bridges connect to which islands or riverbanks. This
Seven Bridges of K�nigsberg problem led to the branch of mathematics known as graph
theory.

A continuous deformation (a type of homeomorphism) of a mug into a doughnut (torus)


and a cow into a sphere
Similarly, the hairy ball theorem of algebraic topology says that "one cannot comb
the hair flat on a hairy ball without creating a cowlick." This fact is immediately
convincing to most people, even though they might not recognize the more formal
statement of the theorem, that there is no nonvanishing continuous tangent vector
field on the sphere. As with the Bridges of K�nigsberg, the result does not depend
on the shape of the sphere; it applies to any kind of smooth blob, as long as it
has no holes.

To deal with these problems that do not rely on the exact shape of the objects, one
must be clear about just what properties these problems do rely on. From this need
arises the notion of homeomorphism. The impossibility of crossing each bridge just
once applies to any arrangement of bridges homeomorphic to those in K�nigsberg, and
the hairy ball theorem applies to any space homeomorphic to a sphere.

Intuitively, two spaces are homeomorphic if one can be deformed into the other
without cutting or gluing. A traditional joke is that a topologist cannot
distinguish a coffee mug from a doughnut, since a sufficiently pliable doughnut
could be reshaped to a coffee cup by creating a dimple and progressively enlarging
it, while shrinking the hole into a handle.[12]

Homeomorphism can be considered the most basic topological equivalence. Another is


homotopy equivalence. This is harder to describe without getting technical, but the
essential notion is that two objects are homotopy equivalent if they both result
from "squishing" some larger object.

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