Instructor: Peter Teichner

Lectures: TuTh 11:00-12:30, 85 Evans

Course Control Number: 54970

Prerequisites: 214, 215A

Syllabus: The course will start with a short survey on Morse theory and the s-cobordism theorem. Then the Thom-Pontrjagin construction will be discussed in detail. It translates the group of smooth manifolds (possibly with additional structure) up to bordism into the homotopy groups of certain Thom spaces. This will lead to the notion of Thom spectra and the associated homology theories. In some cases, these can be computed using characteristic classes which form the next topic of the class.

Homework: In place of homework, several projects will be proposed throughout the course and participants can choose to work these out.

Discussions on Sept. 9 and 11:  Gluing.pdf  Orientations.pdf

Mini-Conference on December 11, 2008, all day in 939 Evans. Schedule.pdf