Presenting classical ideas in a modern framework, the authors carefully highlight how their results relate to (and generalize) existing results in the literature. The central result of the book expresses algebraic surgery theory in terms of the geometric Hopf invariant, a construction in stable homotopy theory which captures the double points of immersions. Many illustrative examples and applications of the abstract results are included in the book, making it of wide interest to topologists. Serving as a valuable reference, this work is aimed at graduate students and researchers interested in understanding how the algebraic and geometric topology fit together in the surgery theory of manifolds. It is the only book providing such a wide-ranging historical approach to the Hopf invariant, double points and surgery theory, withmany results old and new.

Provides the homotopy theoretic foundations for surgery theory Includes a self-contained account of the Hopf invariant in terms of Z_2-equivariant homotopy Covers applications of the Hopf invariant to surgery theory, in particular the Double Point Theorem

Inhalt
1 The difference construction.- 2 Umkehr maps and inner product spaces.- 3 Stable homotopy theory.- 4 Z_2-equivariant homotopy and bordism theory.- 5 The geometric Hopf invariant.- 6 The double point theorem.- 7 The -equivariant geometric Hopf invariant.- 8 Surgery obstruction theory.- A The homotopy Umkehr map.- B Notes on Z2-bordism.- C The geometric Hopf invariant and double points (2010).- References.- Index.