Computation of homotopy groups of spheres via Pontryagin-Thom - MathOverflow

Computation of homotopy groups of spheres via Pontryagin-Thom

2012-11-19T05:55:57Z

The Pontryagin-Thom construction identifies $\pi_{n+k}(S^n)$ with the group of bordism classes of framed $k$-dimensional submanifolds of $S^n$. Before Serre's work introduced algebraic tools into the subject, this was used to calculate $\pi_{n+k}(S^n)$ for $0 \leq k \leq 2$ by Pontryagin and for $k=3$ by Rokhlin.

Does there exist a modern exposition of these proofs anywhere? The case $k=0$ is trivial, but as far as I can tell, the only sources for $k \geq 1$ are Pontryagin's book "Smooth manifolds and their application to homotopy theory" and Rochlin's original paper. The book is very old-fashioned and spend way too much time developing the foundations of smooth manifold theory (I guess there was no nice source in the early 1950's), and Rokhlin's paper is unreadable (to me).

Answer by David C for Computation of homotopy groups of spheres via Pontryagin-Thom

2012-11-19T06:34:38Z

In "Lecture notes in algebraic topology" by J. David and P. Kirk, they explain in chapter $8$, the Thom-Pontryagin construction and how to relate bordism of stably framed manifolds to stable homotopy groups of spheres. There is also "Bordism, stable homotopy and Adams spectral sequences" by S. Kochman where he explains the cases $k=0,1$ in the first chapter. For the case $k=2$, I really like the first sections of the paper "Quadratic functions in geometry, topology and M-theory" by M. Hopkins and I. Singer. Or you can listen to M. Hopkins' lecture on the Kervaire invariant: http://empg.maths.ed.ac.uk/Videos/Atiyah80/Hopkins.mov the lecture is so cool and he spends some time explaining the computation of $\pi_2^S$. Slides are available here: http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/atiyah80.htm

Answer by Chris Gerig for Computation of homotopy groups of spheres via Pontryagin-Thom

2012-11-19T07:38:35Z

The $k=0$ and $k=1$ case are drawn up nicely in the second appendix of Freed and Uhlenbeck's classic book Instantons and Four-Manifolds. It's entitled the Pontrjagin-Thom Construction, and is motivated by wanting to compute $[M,S^3]$ (for any compact simply-connected 4-manifold) whose nontriviality depends on the parity of the natural intersection form.
The best part: there is a cool picture of a dinosaur (that is, a framed cobordism) being cut open (that is, by two homotopy-equivalent framings).

Answer by Mike-Doherty for Computation of homotopy groups of spheres via Pontryagin-Thom

2012-11-19T08:32:28Z

The first part of the book "A la recherche de la topologie Perdue" edited by Guillou and Marin (Progress in Mathematics no 62, Birkhauser 1986) has translations into French of Rokhlin's papers, followed by commentary which aims to assist in reading the papers, and to demonstrate the assertions of Rokhlin which don't seem obvious.