Skip to content

Cohomology

Hatcher's Chapter 3 (pages 185–336). Mapped, not yet decomposed.

Cohomology dualizes homology, and the dualization buys something homology does not have: a ring structure. Hⁿ(X; R) is built by applying Hom(−, R) to the singular chain complex, so it carries the same information up to the Ext terms that the universal coefficient theorem accounts for. The cup product then makes H∗(X; R) a graded ring, and that ring distinguishes spaces with identical homology groups.

Cohomology groups proves the universal coefficient theorem and transfers the Chapter 2 machinery to cohomology.

Cup product constructs the ring structure, proves a Künneth formula, and computes the cohomology rings of projective spaces.

Poincaré duality is the chapter's summit: for a closed R-orientable n-manifold, cap product with the fundamental class is an isomorphism Hᵏ(M; R) ≅ H_{n−k}(M; R).

None of this is in Mathlib, and all of it rests on Chapter 2's excision. Mathlib has the homological algebra — Ext, Tor, derived functors — so the universal coefficient theorem is the most reachable piece once cochains exist.

Sections

Sources