^^Topologia. Links.

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~john/MT4522/Lectures/L2.html

Some historical background

Topology was invented by Henri Poincaré (1850 to 1912) who called it analysis situs to handle stability problems in celestial mechanics. He followed

• combinatorial methods devised by Leonard Euler (1707 to 1783)
  who traced the subject back to Leibniz (1646 to 1716)
• as well as work in differential geometry by
  Gauss (1777 to 1855) and Riemann (1826 to 1866).
   

Topology has developed in several different directions:

1. Differential topology: closest to the original Poincaré concept. It studies surfaces, solutions of differential equations, etc.
2. Algebraic topology: the study of algebraic (= groups, rings, etc.) invariants of topological spaces.
   This led to important developments in algebra, to the development of category theory, etc.
3. Combinatorial or geometric topology: developed from early attempts to answer questions in 1) and 2) above.
4. General or point-set topology: the basic theory underlying the above. This last is what this course will consider.