[Math] the difference between differential topology and calculus on manifolds

differential-topologygeneral-topologymultivariable-calculussoft-question

I'm trying to teach myself one and bought a book on the other. It seems to me that they both cover about the same material. This leads to the question:

What is the difference between differential topology and calculus on manifolds?

Best Answer

They both play off of each other nicely but, in general, differential topology is the study of the topology of a manifold given some smooth structure on that manifold. Calculus on a manifold however, is the study of the manifold and the smooth structure itself.

Perhaps the discrepency is best told by how these subjects differ in how they calculate (co)homology on the objects of their study (although this difference may appear subtle). In differential topology, the first algebraic tool you'll encounter is Morse homology which uses the differential structure (specifically the location and type of critical points) to define a sequence of groups associated to the manifold. These groups turn out to not actually depend on the differential structure on the manifold but only the topology, and so Morse homology is a topological invariant on manifolds which admit a smooth structure. This is exhibited normally by showing an isomorphism between the Morse homology and cellular homology of smooth manifolds.

In the realm of calculus on manifolds however, the first algebraic invariant you'll meet is De Rham cohomology. This sequence of groups is much more abstractly defined as a collection of equivalence classes of differential forms on the manifold and in my opinion depends more heavily on the differential structure from the beginning. Ultimately, De Rham cohomology is also a topological invariant and does not depend on the smooth structure either, so the discrepancy between how reliant on the differential structure the construction is is in their formulation. Something can also be said for their use. De Rham cohomology sheds light on much information about how integration of forms on the manifold acts. Morse homology on the other hand tells us how a smooth gradient-like vector field on our manifold will act and how critical points of various indices interact.

At the end of the day, sometimes groups of theorems don't fit in to nice boxes as we'd like them to and there can be considerable overlap between two 'subjects' (which, let's face it, is a label that humans have artificially constructed for a collection of results and 'objects'). This is definitely one case, and often it's best to study both in parallel (perhaps starting with calculus on manifolds and Riemannian geometry as they have a slightly lower entry-level).