I have a friend who started out many years ago studying mathmatics, game theory and topology. It has always interested me, however as a Dyslexic I have some obvious issues to work around. Is anyone here a fan of Topology?

 

Bill

hmm..I'm obviously out of the loop....the word topology brings to mind the physical setup of a computer network;)..

 

I've been reading CISCO for faaaar too long:p

 

anyone like to educate me on this definition of the word?

Topologists are mathematicians who study qualitative questions about geometrical structures. We do not ask: how big is it? but rather: does it have any holes in it? is it all connected together, or can it be separated into parts?

 

Bill

ooo....I know nothing about it but it sounds a lot more fun than the boring math they're trying to push off on me at school:D

 

I'll have to stick around and see if anyone else knows anything;)

is that literally all it is? a qualitative study? or is there some sort of mathematical structure to it too? It`s always been something that has interested me, after hearing things about how a mug is topologically the same as a donut and things like that, as well as the obvious mobius strip and klein bottles (which suprisingly I only understood a few months ago....)

Well, from what John has told me, all uniform patterns fall into mathmatical constructs, for example the bridges in a town as seen from a satelite photo, the placement of roads, the interactions of people in a crowded room. This all breaks down into "known laws" (funny--I did not know them). His "forte" so to speak is Bargaining theories, but when he was at MIT he got caught up in patterns, etc. Geometry, taken to a 4-d ideology seems to be the basis.

 

Bill

The only formal topology I've done was part of my Mathematics Decision 1 module, which was more suitable for a Computing course as it was to do with computer algorithms as much as anything else.

 

If all goes to plan, I shall however find out more when I degrade and change to mathematics after the summer.

sell out

topology and algebraic topology become very useful when dealing with harmonic mappings and string theory.

 

id like a coffee no sugar and a chocolate torus please!

A topology ...

Choose a basis ...

• the null set
  
• any set A
  
• as many subsets as you like
  

Close up the basis under ...

• arbitrary union
  
• finite intersection
  

... on A