We propose to continue our investigations in several versions of "functorial calculus". Each of these is a technique that exploits multirelative connectivity estimates to describe continuous functors in some context in terms of special values; for example a functor of spaces might be recovered from its values at highly connected spaces, or a functor of subspaces of a manifold from its values at low-dimensional subspaces, or a functor of real inner product spaces from its values at high-dimensional spaces. Part of the proposal is to refine the purely homotopy-theoretic version of "calculus". Other parts are concerned with combining several versions and applying them to various questions in both high- and low-dimensional differential topology.

Each "functorial calculus" mentioned above is so called because of a not-entirely-fanciful resemblance to the ordinary diferential calculus of Newton and Leibniz. Sometimes a fact about numbers is best proved by placing it in a context where the number is part of a huge family of numbers -- a numerical function. Properties of the function then lead, by general theorems of calculus that may seem a bit magical when encountered for the first time, to a computation of the number. So it is here: sometimes a fact about some geometrically defined object is best proved by placing it in a context where the object is part of a huge family of such objects -- a functor -- and using some magic of a more modern kind. This analogy may show something of the flavor of the work; the content is harder to get at, because most of the "geometric" objects in question are connected to everyday reality by rather long chains of abstract ideas.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS)
Application #
0204969
Program Officer
Joanna Kania-Bartoszynska
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2002-07-01
Budget End
2007-06-30
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2002
Total Cost
$335,250
Indirect Cost
Name
Brown University
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Providence
State
RI
Country
United States
Zip Code
02912