Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology (Graduate Texts in Mathematics) [Hardcover]

Raoul Bott (Author), Loring W. Tu (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0387906134 | ISBN-13: 978-0387906133 | Publication Date: May 24, 1982

Developed from a first-year graduate course in algebraic topology, this text is an informal introduction to some of the main ideas of contemporary homotopy and cohomology theory. The materials are structured around four core areas: de Rham theory, the Cech-de Rham complex, spectral sequences, and characteristic classes. By using the de Rham theory of differential forms as a prototype of cohomology, the machineries of algebraic topology are made easier to assimilate. With its stress on concreteness, motivation, and readability, this book is equally suitable for self-study and as a one-semester course in topology.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Bott and Tu give us an introduction to algebraic topology via differential forms, imbued with the spirit of a master who knew differential forms way back when, yet written from a mature point of view which draws together the separate paths traversed by de Rham theory and homotopy theory. Indeed they assume "an audience with prior exposure to algebraic or differential topology". It would be interesting to use Bott and Tu as the text for a first graduate course in algebraic topology; it would certainly be a wonderful supplement to a standard text. “Bott and Tu write with a consistent point of view and a style which is very readable, flowing smoothly from topic to topic. Moreover, the differential forms and the general homotopy theory are well integrated so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. "Not intended to be foundational", the book presents most key ideas, at least in sketch form, from scratch, but does not hesitate to quote as needed, without proof, major results of a technical nature, e.g., Sard's Theorem, Whitney's Embedding Theorem and the Morse Lemma on the form of a nondegenerate critical point.” —James D. Stasheff (Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society)   “This book is an excellent presentation of algebraic topology via differential forms. The first chapter contains the de Rham theory, with stress on computability. Thus, the Mayer-Vietoris technique plays an important role in the exposition. The force of this technique is demonstrated by the fact that the authors at the end of this chapter arrive at a really comprehensive exposition of Poincaré duality, the Euler and Thom classes and the Thom isomorphism. “The second chapter develops and generalizes the Mayer-Vietoris technique to obtain in a very natural way the Čech-de Rham complex and the Čech cohomology for presheaves. The third chapter on spectral sequences is the most difficult one, but also the richest one by the various applications and digressions into other topics of algebraic topology: singular homology and cohomology with integer coefficients and an important part of homotopy theory, including the Hopf invariant, the Postnikov approximation, the Whitehead tower and Serre’s theorem on the homotopy of spheres. The last chapter is devoted to a brief and comprehensive description of the Chern and Pontryagin classes. “A book which covers such an interesting and important subject deserves some remarks on the style: On the back cover one can read “With its stress on concreteness, motivation, and readability, Differential forms in algebraic topology should be suitable for self-study.” This must not be misunderstood in the  ense that it is always easy to read the book. The authors invite the reader to understand algebraic topology by completing himself proofs and examples in the exercises. The reader who seriously follows this invitation really learns a lot of algebraic topology and mathematics in general.” —Hansklaus Rummler (American Mathematical Society)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Springer (May 24, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387906134
• ISBN-13: 978-0387906133
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #621,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique mathematics book, January 22, 2002

By 

sigfpe "sigfpe" (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology (Graduate Texts in Mathematics) (Hardcover)

This book is almost unique among mathematics books in that it strives to ensure that you have the clearest picture possible of the topics under discussion. For example almost every text that discusses spectral sequences introduces them as a completely abstract machine that pumps out theorems in a mysterious way. But it turns out that all those maps actually have a clear meaning and Bott and Tu get right in there with clear diagrams showing exactly what those maps mean and where the generators of the various groups get mapped. It's clear enough that you can almost reach out and touch the things :-) And the same is true of all of the other constructions in the book - you always have a concrete example in mind with which to test out your understanding.

That makes this one of my all time favourite mathematics texts.

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Painless intro to spectral sequences and algebraic topology, January 28, 2000

By 

Michael Spertus (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology (Graduate Texts in Mathematics) (Hardcover)

Wonderful book. The real theme of this book is to get the reader to some powerful and compelling applications of algebraic topology and comfort with spectral sequences. The use of differential forms avoids the painful and for the beginner unmotivated homological algebra in algebraic topology. E.g., For example, the wedge product of differential forms allow immediate construction of cup products without digression into acyclic models, simplicial sets, or Eilenberg-Zilber theorem. The authors later come back and do the now-motivated version for singular homology later.

I really like the idea of using spectral sequences from the beginning. It quickly brings in the actual flavor of algebraic topology by introducing today's workhorse tool. Also, because spectral sequences take a long time to become second nature (at least they did for me), the earlier the exposure to them the quicker the reader will be able to do more advanced topics comfortably. Again, spectral sequences are introduced in a painless special case, that of a double complex, and more difficult cases are not treated until the reader feels comfortable with basic spectral sequence calculations.

Finally, the prerequisites are less than or equal to those for other algebraic topology books, making this a nice choice for a first exposure to algebraic topology.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A first class job, August 17, 2001

By 

Dr. Lee D. Carlson (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology (Graduate Texts in Mathematics) (Hardcover)

The authors of this book, through clever examples and in-depth discussion, give the reader a rare accounting of some of the important concepts of algebraic topology. The introduction motivates the subject nicely, and the authors succeed in giving the reader an appreciation of where the concepts of algebraic topology come from, how they do their jobs, and their limitations. The de Rham cohomology, which is the main subject of the book, is explained in here in a way that gives the reader an intuitive and geometric understanding, which is sorely needed, especially for physicists who are interested in applications. As an example, they give a neat argument as to why de Rham cohomology cannot detect torsion.

In chapter 1, the authors get down to the task of constructing de Rham cohomology, starting with the de Rham complex on R(n). The de Rham complex is then specialized to the case where only C-infinity functions with compact support are used, giving the de Rham complex with compact supports on R(n). The de Rham complex is then generalized to any differentiable manifold and the de Rham cohomology computed using the Mayer-Vietoris sequence.

The discussion gets a little more involved when the authors characterize the cohomology of a fiber bundle. The all-important Thom isomorphism for vector bundles, is treated in detail. The authors give several good examples of the Poincare duals of submanifolds. The connection to ideas in differential topology is readily apparent in this chapter, namely transversality and the degree of a map. In addition, the first construction of a characteristic class, the Euler class, is done in this chapter.

The Mayer-Vietoris sequence is generalized to the case of countably many open sets in chapter 2, and shown to be isomorphic to the Cech cohomology for a "good" cover of a manifold. Good examples are given for computing the de Rham cohomology from the combinatorics of a good cover. The authors then characterize Cech cohomology groups in more detail, introducing the important concept of a presheaf. Presheaves are usually introduced abstractly in most books, so it is a real treat to see them described here in such an understandable way. Computations of the case of a sphere bundle are given, and the role of orientability and the Euler class in giving the existence of a global form on the total space is detailed. The Thom isomorphism theorem and Poincare duality are generalized to the cases where the manifold does not have a finite good cover and the vector bundle is not orientable. A very concrete introduction to monodromy is given and nice examples of presheaves that are not constant are given.

The authors treat spectral sequences in chapter 4, and as usual with this topic, the level of abstraction can be a stumbling block for the newcomer. The authors though explain that the spectral sequence is nothing other than a generalization of the double complex of differential forms that was considered in chapter 2. The crucial step in the chapter is the transition to cohomology with integer coefficients, which is necessary if one is to study torsion phenomena. The De Rham theory is then extended to singular cohomology and the Mayer-Vietoris sequence studied for singular cochains. The authors show that the singular cohomology of a triangularizable space is isomorphic to its Cech cohomology with the constant presheaf the integers. After a fairly detailed review of homotopy theory (including a discussion of Morse theory) the authors compute the fourth and fifth homotopy groups of S(3). The last section of the chapter discusses the rational homotopy theory of Sullivan as applied to differentiable manifolds. The authors discussion is illuminating, and shows how eliminating any torsion information allows one to prove some interesting results on the homotopy groups of spheres. One such result is Serre's theorem, the other being the computation of some low-dimensional homotopy groups of the wedge product of S(2) with itself.

The last chapter of the book considers the theory of characteristic classes, with Chern classes of complex vector bundles being treated first. The theory of characteristic classes is usually treated formally, and this book is no exception, wherein the authors formulate it using ideas of Grothendieck. They do however give one nice example of the computation of the first Chern class of a tautological bundle over a projective space. The Pontryagin class is defined in terms of a complexification of a real vector bundle and computed for spheres and complex manifolds. A superb discussion is given of the construction of the universal bundle and the representation of any bundle as the pullback map over this bundle.