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Simplicial Structures in Topology

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III.5 Real Projective Spaces 131<br />

0<br />

��<br />

H3(RP 3 ;Z) ∼ = ��<br />

Z<br />

��<br />

0<br />

��<br />

0<br />

��<br />

H2(RP 3 ;Z)<br />

��<br />

Z2<br />

��<br />

∼ H1(RP<br />

= 3 ;Z)<br />

which easily leads to the thesis. �<br />

At this stage, the reader could be tempted to compute the homology of RP 4 with<br />

this method and then apply the Exact Sequence Theorem <strong>in</strong> Homology to compute<br />

the homology of RP n by <strong>in</strong>duction; unfortunately, this idea will not work, because<br />

the connect<strong>in</strong>g homomorphisms λq : Hq(S n ,Z) → Hq−1(RP n−1 ,Z) are generally<br />

not known. Therefore, we must come up with another method for comput<strong>in</strong>g the<br />

homology of RP n when n ≥ 4; this will be done <strong>in</strong> the next subsection.<br />

III.5.1 Block Homology<br />

We beg<strong>in</strong> by review<strong>in</strong>g how to compute the homology of the torus T 2 . To start<br />

with, we <strong>in</strong>terpret the torus T 2 as deriv<strong>in</strong>g from the square with vertices (0,0),<br />

(1,0), (0,1), and(1,1) by identify<strong>in</strong>g the two horizontal edges and then the two<br />

vertical ones. A possible triangulation T of the torus is represented <strong>in</strong> Fig. III.4<br />

0 1 2 0<br />

3 5 6 3<br />

4 7 8 4<br />

0 1 2 0<br />

Fig. III.4<br />

(see also p. 63). We have 9 vertices, 27 edges, and 18 faces, a total of 54 simplexes<br />

<strong>in</strong> it, too large a number, consider<strong>in</strong>g what we started with; <strong>in</strong> fact, given<br />

the identifications made on the Euclidean square, we could take the simplexes <strong>in</strong><br />

“blocks”, consider only one vertex (the four vertices have been identified), two onedimensional<br />

“blocks”, namely, one vertical edge and one horizontal edge (without<br />

their end-po<strong>in</strong>ts), and only one two-dimensional “block”, namely, the square<br />

without its boundary. We then ask ourselves whether it is possible to compute the<br />

homology of T 2 by means of this block (or “cellular”) <strong>in</strong>terpretation of the torus<br />

and, <strong>in</strong> do<strong>in</strong>g so, avoid handl<strong>in</strong>g a rather large number of simplexes; because, if<br />

the procedure is already a little complicated for the torus, a space that can, after<br />

��<br />

��<br />

0,

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