VIGRE seminar, spring 2000:
Topics in Combinatorics and Topology
- Instructor
-
Laura Anderson
- Students enrolled
-
Crystal Hoyt,
Roel Morales
(undergraduate mathematics students);
Stephen Shauger,
Conrad Yang
(graduate mathematics students)
- Description
-
This seminar approached topology via spaces
constructed combinatorially (e.g., simplicial complexes).
This approach allowed us to
sidestep most of the content of the usual introductory topology course and
start working with spaces without developing extensive theory.
The main thrust was the relationship between the topology and
combinatorics of spaces with combinatorial constructions.
Topics included:
general and piecewise linear topology,
Euler characteristic,
Mobius function,
f-vectors,
topology of partially ordered sets,
shellings and their generalizations.