Simplices and simplicial complexes | Algebraic Topology | NJ Wildberger
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 Published On Oct 7, 2012

Simplices are higher dimensional analogs of line segments and triangle, such as a tetrahedron. We begin this lecture by discussing convex combinations and convex hulls, and showing a natural hierarchy from point to line segment to triangle to tetrahedron. Each of these also has a standard representation as the convex hull of the unit basis vectors in a vector space.

Simplicial complexes are arrangements of simplices where any two are either disjoint or meet at a face, where by face we mean the convex hull of any subset of the vertices of a simplex.

Each simplex has two possible orientations, corresponding to a particular ordering of the vertices. We show how an orientation of a tetrahedron induces orientations on each of its four triangular faces. The boundary of a simplex is then an alternating combination of its oriented faces of dimension one less. A key theorem is that if we apply the boundary to a boundary, we always get zero. This is the basis of the definition of homology.

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