Algebraic Topology - Applications of Algebraic Topology

Applications of Algebraic Topology

Classic applications of algebraic topology include:

• The Brouwer fixed point theorem: every continuous map from the unit n-disk to itself has a fixed point.
• The n-sphere admits a nowhere-vanishing continuous unit vector field if and only if n is odd. (For n = 2, this is sometimes called the "hairy ball theorem".)
• The Borsuk–Ulam theorem: any continuous map from the n-sphere to Euclidean n-space identifies at least one pair of antipodal points.
• Any subgroup of a free group is free. This result is quite interesting, because the statement is purely algebraic yet the simplest proof is topological. Namely, any free group G may be realized as the fundamental group of a graph X. The main theorem on covering spaces tells us that every subgroup H of G is the fundamental group of some covering space Y of X; but every such Y is again a graph. Therefore its fundamental group H is free. On the other hand this type of application is also handled more simply by the use of covering morphisms of groupoids, and that technique has yielded subgroup theorems not yet proved by methods of algebraic topology. (See the book by Higgins listed under groupoids.)
• Topological combinatorics