History
Homology classes were first defined rigorously by Henri Poincaré in his seminal paper "Analysis situs", J. Ecole polytech. (2) 1. 1–121 (1895).
The homology group was further developed by Emmy Noether and, independently, by Leopold Vietoris and Walther Mayer, in the period 1925–28. Prior to this, topological classes in combinatorial topology were not formally considered as abelian groups. The spread of homology groups marked the change of terminology and viewpoint from "combinatorial topology" to "algebraic topology".
Read more about this topic: Homology (mathematics)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)