Hi, everyone:

I have been going over some simplicial homology recently, hoping to get
some geometric insight that I don't know how to get from the algebraic machinery alone.

I have been trying to find the homology of the torus this way, i.e., by triangulating it ( i.e., finding a carrier for the torus), but the smallest triangulation I have been able to do , has 18 triangles/faces --I checked it works; there are 8 vertices and 26 edges. Still: does anyone know of a simpler triangulation, ie., one with a smaller total number of triangles (and, of course, fewer vertices and edges resp.). ?

I had tried the long shot of solving the very simple equation:

V-E+F =0

in positive integers.

but this alone does not seem to help . Any ideas.?. Any ideas for finding minimal triangulations of surfaces, or higher-dimensional manifolds.?

Thanks.