Algebraic Topology · Problem 15

Homotopy Theory — Allen Hatcher

Mathematics — Topology · simply-connected-3-manifold-s3

Problem

Show that a closed simply-connected 3-manifold is homotopy equivalent to S3S^3. [Use Poincar\'e duality, and also the fact that closed manifolds are homotopy equivalent to CW complexes, from Corollary A.12 in the Appendix. The stronger statement that a closed simply-connected 3-manifold is homeomorphic to S3S^3 is the Poincar\'e conjecture, finally proved by Perelman. The higher-dimensional analog, that a closed nn-manifold homotopy equivalent to SnS^n is homeomorphic to SnS^n, had been proved earlier for all n≥4n \geq 4.]

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