Scribd
Upload
42 views4 pages

Preface

This document provides context and background information for a textbook on manifolds. It discusses the history and motivation for studying manifolds, provides an overview of the textbook's content and approach, outlines prerequisites and acknowledges influences and contributors.

Uploaded by

Kaustubh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
42 views4 pages

Preface

This document provides context and background information for a textbook on manifolds. It discusses the history and motivation for studying manifolds, provides an overview of the textbook's content and approach, outlines prerequisites and acknowledges influences and contributors.

Uploaded by

Kaustubh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Preface

In his inaugural lecture in 18541 , Riemann introduced the concept of an “n-fach


ausgedehnte Grösse” – roughly something that has “n degrees of freedom” and
which we now would call an n-dimensional manifold.
Examples of manifolds are all around us and arise in many applications, but
formulating the ideas in a satisfying way proved to be a challenge inspiring the
creation of beautiful mathematics. As a matter of fact, much of the mathematical
language of the twentieth century was created with manifolds in mind.
Modern texts often leave readers with the feeling that they are getting the answer
before they know there is a problem. Taking the historical approach to this didactic
problem has several disadvantages. The pioneers were brilliant mathematicians,
but still they struggled for decades getting the concepts right. We must accept that
we are standing on the shoulders of giants.
The only remedy I see is to give carefully chosen examples to guide the mind
to ponder over the questions that you would actually end up wondering about even
after spending a disproportionate amount of time. In this way I hope to encourage
readers to appreciate and internalize the solutions when they are offered.
These examples should be concrete. On the other end of the scale, proofs should
also be considered as examples: they are examples of successful reasoning. “Here
is a way of handling such situations!” However, no amount of reading can replace
doing, so there should be many opportunities for trying your hand.
In this book I have done something almost unheard of: I provide (sometimes
quite lengthy) hints for all the exercises. This requires quite a lot of self-discipline
from the reader: it is very hard not to peek at the solution too early. There are
several reasons for including hints. First and foremost, the exercises are meant to be
an integral part of class life. The exercises can be assigned to students who present
their solutions in problem sessions, in which case the students must internalize
their solution, but at the same time should be offered some moral support to lessen
the social stress. Secondly, the book was designed for students who – even if eager
to learn – are in need of more support with respect to how one can reason about
the material. Trying your hand on the problem, getting stuck, taking a peek to see
whether you glimpse an idea, trying again . . . and eventually getting a solution that
you believe in and which you can discuss in class is way preferable to not having
..................................................................................
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Riemann
x Preface

anything to bring to class. A side effect is that this way makes it permissible to
let the students develop parts of the text themselves without losing accountability.
Lastly, though this was not a motivation for me, providing hints makes the text
better suited for self-study.

Why This Book?


The year I followed the manifold course (as a student), we used Spivak [20], and I
came to love the “Great American Differential Geometry book”. At the same time,
I discovered a little gem by Bröker and Jänich [4] in the library that saved me on
some of the occasions when I got totally befuddled. I spent an inordinate amount
of time on that class.
Truth be told, there are many excellent books on manifolds out there; to name
just three, Lee’s book [13] is beautiful; in a macho way so is Kosinski’s [11]; and
Milnor’s pearl [15] will take you all the way from zero to framed cobordisms in 50
pages. Why write one more?
Cambridge University Press wanted “A Short Introduction” to precede my orig-
inal title “Differential Topology”. They were right: this is a far less ambitious text
than the ones I have mentioned, and was designed for the students who took my
classes. As a student I probably could provide a proof for all the theorems, but if
someone asked me to check a very basic fact like “Is this map smooth?” I would
feel that it was so for “obvious reasons” and hope for the life of me that no one
would ask “why?” The book offers a modern framework while not reducing every-
thing to some sort of magic. This allows us to take a hands-on approach; we are less
inclined to identify objects without being specific about how they should be iden-
tified, removing some of the anxiety about “variables” and “coordinates changing”
this or that way.
Spending time on the basics but still aiming at a one-semester course forces some
compromises on this fairly short book. Sadly, topics like Sard’s theorem, Stokes’
theorem, differential forms, de Rham cohomology, differential equations, Rieman-
nian geometry and surfaces, imbedding theory, K-theory, singularities, foliations
and analysis on manifolds are barely touched upon.
At the end of the term, I hope that the reader will have internalized the fun-
damental ideas and will be able to use the basic language and tools with enough
confidence to apply them in other fields, and to embark on more ambitious texts.
Also, I wanted to prove Ehresmann’s fibration theorem because I think it is cool.

How to Start Reading


The core curriculum consists of Chapters 2–8. The introduction in Chapter 1 is not
strictly necessary for highly motivated readers who cannot wait to get to the theory,
but provides some informal examples and discussions meant to put the later mate-
rial into some perspective. If you are weak on point set topology, you will probably
want to read Appendix A in parallel with Chapter 2. You should also be aware
Preface xi

of the fact that Chapters 4 and 5 are largely independent, and, apart from a few
exercises, can be read in any order. Also, at the cost of removing some exercises
and examples, the sections on derivations (Section 3.5), orientations (Section 6.7),
the generalized Gauss map (Section 6.8), second-order differential equations (Sec-
tion 7.4), the exponential map (Section 8.2.7) and Morse theory (Section 8.4) can
be removed from the curriculum without disrupting the logical development of
ideas. The cotangent space/bundle material (Sections 3.4 and 5.6) can be omitted
at the cost of using the dual tangent bundle from Chapter 6 onward.
Do the exercises, and only peek(!) at the hints if you really need to.

Prerequisites
Apart from relying on standard courses in multivariable analysis and linear algebra,
this book is designed for readers who have already completed either a course in
analysis that covers the basics of metric spaces or a first course in general topology.
Most students will feel that their background in linear algebra could have been
stronger, but it is to be hoped that seeing it used will increase their appreciation of
things beyond Gaussian elimination.

Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I am indebted to the students and professors who have used
the online notes and given me invaluable feedback. Special thanks go to Håvard
Berland, Elise Klaveness, Torleif Veen, Karen Sofie Ronæss, Ivan Viola, Samuel
Littig, Eirik Berge, Morten Brun and Andreas Leopold Knutsen. I owe much to
a couple of anonymous referees (some unsolicited, but all very helpful) for their
diligent reading and many constructive comments. They were probably right to
insist that the final version should not actively insult the reader even if it means
adopting less colorful language. The people at Cambridge University Press have
all been very helpful, and I want especially to thank Clare Dennison, Tom Harris
and Steven Holt.
My debt to the books [8], [11], [12], [13], [15], [14], [20] and in particular [4]
should be evident from the text.
I am grateful to UiB for allowing me to do several revisions in an inspiring envi-
ronment (Kistrand, northern Norway), and to the Hausdorff Institute in Bonn and
the University of Copenhagen for their hospitality. The frontispiece is an adaption
of one of my T-shirts. Thanks to Vår Iren Hjorth Dundas.

Notation
We let N = {0, 1, 2, . . . }, Z = {. . . , −1, 0, 1, . . . }, Q, R and C be the sets of
natural numbers, integers, rational numbers, real numbers and complex numbers.
If X and Y are two sets, X × Y is the set of ordered pairs (x, y) with x an element
in X and y an element in Y . If n is a natural number, we let Rn and Cn be the
vector spaces of ordered n-tuples of real and complex numbers. Occasionally we
xii Preface

may identify Cn with R2n . If p = ( p1 , . . . , pn ) ∈ Rn , we let | p| be the norm



p12 + · · · + pn2 . The sphere of dimension n is the subset S n ⊆ Rn+1 of all p =
( p0 , . . . , pn ) ∈ Rn+1 with | p| = 1 (so that S 0 = {−1, 1} ⊆ R, and S 1 can be
viewed as all the complex numbers eiθ of unit length).
Given functions f : X → Y and g : Y → Z , we write g f for the composite,
and g ◦ f only if the notation is cluttered and the ◦ improves readability. The
constellation g · f will occur in the situation where f and g are functions with the
same source and target, and where multiplication makes sense in the target. If X
and Y are topological spaces, a continuous function f : X → Y is simply referred
to as a map.

You might also like