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On This Webpage:
Book Projects:	Algebraic Topology Vector Bundles and K-Theory Spectral Sequences in Algebraic Topology Basic Topology of 3-Manifolds
Papers
Other Things:	Pictures of stable homotopy groups of spheres List of recommended books in Topology (from 2003, needs updating) Books by other authors Photos of Renwick Brook

Book Projects

Algebraic Topology This is the first in a series of three textbooks in algebraic topology having the goal of covering all the basics while remaining readable by newcomers seeing the subject for the first time. The first book contains the basic core material along with a number of optional topics of a relatively elementary nature. The other two books, which are largely independent of each other, are provisionally titled "Vector Bundles and K-Theory" and "Spectral Sequences in Algebraic Topology." These are only partially written -- see below. To find out more about the first book or to download it in electronic form, follow this link to the download page.

Vector Bundles and K-Theory The plan is for this to be a fairly short book focusing on topological K-theory and containing also the necessary background material on vector bundles and characteristic classes. For further information, and to download the part of the book that is written, go to the download page.

Spectral Sequences in Algebraic Topology This is intended to be a readable introduction to spectral sequences, with emphasis on their applications to algebraic topology. The first chapter begins by introducing spectral sequences via the Serre spectral sequence, followed by some applications such as Serre classes and Sullivan localization. Later chapters introduce the Adams and Eilenberg-Moore spectral sequences. For more details and to download the part of the book that is written so far go to the download page.

Basic Topology of 3-Manifolds Another unfinished book, this one barely begun in fact. What is written so far doesn't cover a lot of material, but it does contain a few things that aren't readily available elsewhere, like the elementary form of the Jaco-Shalen/Johannson torus decomposition theorem. Here is a rather brief Table of Contents for the current version, just 60 pages obtainable on the download page.

List of Published Papers

A Survey Article:

• The classification of 3-manifolds -- a brief survey. This is a written version (11 pages, pdf file) of an expository talk at the 2004 Cornell Topology Festival. You can also download a pdf file of the transparencies for the talk itself.

Recent Preprints:

• "The cyclic cycle complex of a surface". pdf file (January 2008, 7 pages)
• "Stabilization for mapping class groups of 3-manifolds" (with Nathalie Wahl). pdf file (September 2007, 47 pages)

Papers published since 1996:

• "Erratum to: Homology stability for outer automorphism groups of free groups" (with Karen Vogtmann and Nathalie Wahl). Alg.& Geom. Topology 6 (2006) 573-579. pdf file
• "Stabilization for the automorphisms of free groups with boundaries" (with Nathalie Wahl). Geometry and Topology 9 (2005), 1295-1336. pdf file. See also the short Erratum that refers to our second paper (preprint listed above) for details.
• "Homology stability for outer automorphism groups of free groups" (with Karen Vogtmann), Alg. & Geom. Topology 4 (2004), 1253-1272. pdf file. There is a correction to this paper that is listed above.
• "Pants decompositions of surfaces" pdf file. This is a 12-page excerpt from a joint paper with Pierre Lochak and Leila Schneps,"On the Teichmuller Tower of Mapping Class Groups," J. reine angew. Math. 521 (2000), 1-24.
• "Rational homology of Aut(F_n)" (with Karen Vogtmann), Math Research Letters 5 (1998), 759-780. pdf file
• "The complex of free factors of a free group" (with Karen Vogtmann), Oxford Quarterly 49 (1998), 459-468. pdf file
• "Cerf theory for graphs" (with Karen Vogtmann), J. London Math Soc. 58 (1998), 633-655. pdf file
• "Finiteness of classifying spaces of relative diffeomorphism groups of 3-manifolds" (with Darryl McCullough), Geometry and Topology 1 (1997), 91-109. pdf file
• "Isoperimetric inequalities for automorphism groups of free groups" (with Karen Vogtmann), Pacific J. Math. 173 (1996), 425-441. pdf file

Updates of older papers:

• "Spaces of incompressible surfaces". This is an improved version of a paper published in Topology in 1976 with the title: "Homeomorphisms of sufficiently large P^2-irreducible 3-manifolds". pdf file (10 pages)
• "Triangulations of surfaces". The original version of this was published in Topology and its Applications in 1991. pdf file (7 pages).
• "On the diffeomorphism group of S^1 x S^2". This is a revision, written in 2003, of a paper originally published in the AMS Proceedings in 1981. pdf file (6 pages).
• "Boundary curves of incompressible surfaces". A rewritten version of a paper originally published in 1982 in the Pacific Journal. pdf file (5 pages).

Unfinished drafts:

• "Diffeomorphism groups of reducible 3-manifolds". This is an incomplete draft, lacking some proofs. pdf file (6 pages)
• "Topological moduli spaces of knots". This is also unfinished, but the aim is to describe the homotopy types of the components of the space of all knots in the 3-sphere. pdf file (12 pages) This version posted October, 2002.
• "Measured lamination spaces for 3-manifolds". An unfinished draft of a paper written in the late 1980's, now converted into TeX and mildly edited, but with the same mathematical content as the old paper. pdf file (36 pages)

Unpublished papers:

• "Bianchi orbifolds of small discriminant" pdf file (6 pages). This is a brief report I wrote in 1983 but never published. Here are some Pictures of Bianchi orbifolds.
• "Curves on the 4-punctured sphere: 31 Charts" (with Bill Floyd). This is an unpublished paper from around 1980 that you can download as a rather large pdf file (3.8MB) that was made by scanning the original typescript. You can also view it onscreen here.