Research and projects

Singularity Theory?

I have a page which answers the question What is a singularity? Singularity theory appears in various guises throughout mathematics, in algebra, geometry, topology, analysis, algebraic geometry, differential geometry, statistics and so on. It is also used in many applications, for example optics or dynamical systems. It has even been used in dry cleaning. (Actually that should be dry laser cleaning but that's not so funny!)

Topology of images

Much research has been done on fibres of maps since most fibres of maps are manifolds. In fact, one can use this fact as a definition of a manifold, that is, a manifold looks locally like the fibre of a submersion.

However, lots of spaces are images and these generally have singularities. For example, the cross cap, seen on the What is a singularity? page has singularities. The cross cap is stable in the sense that small perturbations of the map do not remove the singular point. Furthermore, the singularities are non-isolated. Therefore this singularity is common (because it's stable) but not studied much (because it's not an isolated singularity)! What this means is that there are many, many problems that have not been looked at.

My work in this area has focussed on the use of a spectral sequence that computes the homology of the image of a finite map. There are plenty of unsolved problems just begging to be attacked by this tool.

Equisingularity

Equisingularity is a fancy way of saying that the singularities in a family are all the same. What "are the same" means varies. One example is to ask if the family members all have the same topological type. I have focussed on the notion of Whiney equisingularity and have just recently been getting the results I want, so I'll probably give up this line of work. There are still quite a number of interesting (and tractable problems available).

Classification of singularities

An ancient game to play with singularities is classification. Given some restrictions what sort of singularities occur. For example, in the UK A level examinations we ask students to find maxima and minima of functions. To decide which sort we have we use the second derivative of the function. We end up with maxima, minima and a needs-futher-investigation category. For two variable functions we get maxima, minima, saddles and a needs-futher-investigation category.

We can play this game for lots of other maps. I have worked on those that occur unavoidably in one-parameter families of map. An obvious extension would be to two-parameter families. When this is done, one could produce Vassiliev type invariants.

However, a more fruitful investigation could be made of functions on singular spaces. For example, take a cross-cap or its higher dimensional generalization. What is the classification of functions on this set? A simple question yet little has been done in this area, despite the fact that one could get interesting geometrical results from it.

Medial Axis / Symmetry Set

Symmetry sets and medial axes are subjects new to me. What is great about this subject is that it is concerned with low dimensions and is done over the real numbers, you can see what is going on. In most of my research I have been looking at the topology of high dimensional complex analytic sets - you can't draw these and can only imagine them in some abstract sense.

Definition of symmetry set of a curve: Consider a non-singular plane curve C. The symmetry set of C is the closure of the set of points of centres of circles that are tangent to C at two or more points. This measure the shape of the curve.

One can generalise to manifolds in any Euclidean space - just take the closure of the locus of points of spheres that are tangent at two or more points.

Interestingly, this gives old fashioned geometry - doing what the ancients wanted to do but didn't have the tools. Too much geometry these days doesn't involve striking visuals - or even any pictures. Researchers give talks where they fill the blackboard with &nabla after &nabla. These are results that the ancients such as Monge, Cayley and Gauss would say 'How cool is that?' or whatever phrase academics used in those days to show their appreciation.

Another reason for it being interesting is that it is close to applications in the real world. Anything you do here has the potential to be used in real-life pretty soon. (My usual stuff on the topology of high dimensional complex analytic sets is unlikely to be used soon - if ever!)

Lots of different areas of research are possible. Simple questions do not seem to be answered. What is the symmetry set of the symmetry set is an amusing one -- it does assume that we can define the symmetry set of a singular set, but that, again, is an unexplored topic. Much work is in its infancy, so for example, only recently has Jim Damon given a reasonable definition of the Weingarten map for medial axes.

So, plenty to do!

Back to index