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3 votes
0 answers
285 views

What is the logical progression in algebraic tools for studying spaces (varieties -> schemes, sheaves, topos etc.)?

Some algebraists (Cartier, Weil, Atiyah, etc.) sometimes speak of geometry as a long history of essentially asking the same question—"what is space, and how would one describe a space uniquely". ...
i am circle's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
1k views

Measuring a presheaf's failure to be a sheaf?

Apologies for the vagueness of question. Background this thread has some nice examples of presheaves failing to be sheaves. Question Is there a generic way to measure "how badly" a presheaf fails ...
zzz's user avatar
  • 928
15 votes
1 answer
1k views

Grothendieck - sheaves as meter sticks

I'm trying to read parts of McLarty's Grothendieck on Simplicity and Generality. In the article, I read Grothendieck thought of sheaves over some topological space as meter sticks measuring it. ...
Arrow's user avatar
  • 10.5k
19 votes
2 answers
3k views

Explaining Mukai-Fourier transforms physically

A core concept in mathematics, engineering, and physics is the Fourier Transform (FT) and its many variants (Generalized Fourier Series, Green's Function, Pontryagin duality). The basic algorithm is ...
Tom Copeland's user avatar
  • 10.5k
45 votes
8 answers
14k views

How should one think about sheafification and the difference between a sheaf and a presheaf

The first time I got in touch with the abstract notion of a sheaf on a topological space $X$, I thought of it as something which assigns to an open set $U$ of $X$ something like the ring of continuous ...
roger123's user avatar
  • 2,782
19 votes
6 answers
2k views

Is the dual notion of a presheaf useful?

It seems that there is a common theme in mathematics where, if we want to find out about a category C, then we look at $\hat{C}$ (the category of contravariant functors from $C$ to $Set$). There are ...
Dylan Wilson's user avatar
  • 13.5k
20 votes
0 answers
3k views

Idea of presheaf cohomology vs. sheaf cohomology

Let $X$ be a topological space and $U$ an open cover of $X$. In this thread Angelo explained beautifully how presheaf cohomology (Cech cohomology) relates to sheaf cohomology: The zeroth Cech ...
user7316's user avatar
  • 319
7 votes
3 answers
562 views

Abstract Relation between Presehaves and Simplicial Sets

Every presheaf (let's say on a topological space) comes with restriction maps. The open sets of a topological space are ordered by inclusion and these inclusions yield the restrictions. Now a sheaf ...
Konrad Voelkel's user avatar
62 votes
8 answers
14k views

Sheaf cohomology and injective resolutions

In defining sheaf cohomology (say in Hartshorne), a common approach seems to be defining the cohomology functors as derived functors. Is there any conceptual reason for injective resolution to come ...
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