Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Toolkit For The Construction And Understanding Of 3-Manifolds, Lee R. Lambert

Theses and Dissertations

Since our world is experienced locally in three-dimensional space, students of mathematics struggle to visualize and understand objects which do not fit into three-dimensional space. 3-manifolds are locally three-dimensional, but do not fit into 3-dimensional space and can be very complicated. Twist and bitwist are simple constructions that provide an easy path to both creating and understanding closed, orientable 3-manifolds. By starting with simple face pairings on a 3-ball, a myriad of 3-manifolds can be easily constructed. In fact, all closed, connected, orientable 3-manifolds can be developed in this manner. We call this work a tool kit to emphasize the …