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This turns out to be easier than the 3- or 4-dimensional case: the 3-dimensional case is the Thurston geometrisation conjecture, and the 4-dimensional case was solved by Michael Freedman (1982) in the topological case, [5] but is a very hard unsolved problem in the smooth case. In dimension 5, the smooth classification of simply connected ...
Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, defined as smooth manifolds with a Riemannian metric (an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smoothly from point to point). This gives, in particular, local notions of angle, length of curves, surface area and volume.
Let M be a smooth manifold. A (smooth) singular k-simplex in M is defined as a smooth map from the standard simplex in R k to M. The group C k (M, Z) of singular k-chains on M is defined to be the free abelian group on the set of singular k-simplices in M. These groups, together with the boundary map, ∂, define a chain complex.
Symplectic manifolds arise from classical mechanics; in particular, they are a generalization of the phase space of a closed system. [1] In the same way the Hamilton equations allow one to derive the time evolution of a system from a set of differential equations, the symplectic form should allow one to obtain a vector field describing the flow of the system from the differential of a ...
In mathematics, particularly topology, an atlas is a concept used to describe a manifold. An atlas consists of individual charts that, roughly speaking, describe individual regions of the manifold. In general, the notion of atlas underlies the formal definition of a manifold and related structures such as vector bundles and other fiber bundles.
Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multilinear algebra. The field has its origins in the study of spherical geometry as far back as antiquity.
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Let be a smooth manifold; a (smooth) distribution assigns to any point a vector subspace in a smooth way. More precisely, consists of a collection {} of vector subspaces with the following property: Around any there exist a neighbourhood and a collection of vector fields, …, such that, for any point , span {(), …, ()} =.