Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Whitehead theorem states that a weak homotopy equivalence from one CW complex to another is a homotopy equivalence. (That is, the map f: X → Y has a homotopy inverse g: Y → X, which is not at all clear from the assumptions.) This implies the same conclusion for spaces X and Y that are homotopy equivalent to CW complexes.
CW complexes satisfy the Whitehead theorem: a map between CW complexes is a homotopy equivalence if and only if it induces an isomorphism on all homotopy groups. A covering space of a CW complex is also a CW complex.
In algebraic topology and abstract algebra, homology (in part from Greek ὁμός homos "identical") is a certain general procedure to associate a sequence of abelian groups or modules with a given mathematical object such as a topological space or a group.
Remarkably, Whitehead's theorem says that for CW complexes, a weak homotopy equivalence and a homotopy equivalence are the same thing. Another important result is the approximation theorem. First, the homotopy category of spaces is the category where an object is a space but a morphism is the homotopy class of a map. Then
Typically these only hold for larger dimensions. The first such result was Hans Freudenthal's suspension theorem, published in 1937. Stable algebraic topology flourished between 1945 and 1966 with many important results. [19] In 1953 George W. Whitehead showed that there is a metastable range for the homotopy groups of spheres.
Results of J.H.C. Whitehead, in particular Whitehead's theorem and the existence of CW approximations, [4] give a more explicit description of the homotopy category. Namely, the homotopy category is equivalent to the full subcategory of the naive homotopy category that consists of CW complexes. In this respect, the homotopy category strips away ...
If a space X is contractible, then it is also acyclic, by the homotopy invariance of homology. The converse is not true, in general. Nevertheless, if X is an acyclic CW complex, and if the fundamental group of X is trivial, then X is a contractible space, as follows from the Whitehead theorem and the Hurewicz theorem.
The prototype here is the Jordan curve theorem, which topologically concerns the complement of a circle in the Riemann sphere. It also tells the same story. We have the honest Betti numbers 1, 1, 0. of the circle, and therefore 0, 1, 1. by flipping over and 1, 1, 0. by shifting to the left.