Topology – Difference Between Immersion and Embedding

differential-geometrygeneral-topologygeometryklein-bottleterminology

Could someone please explain what "embedding" means (maybe a more intuitive definition)? I read that the Klein bottle and real projective plane cannot be embedded in ${\mathbb R}^3$, but is embedded in ${\mathbb R}^4$. Aren't those two things 3D objects? If so, why aren't they embedded in ${\mathbb R}^3$? Also, I have come across the word "immersion". What is the difference between "immersion" and "embedding"?

Thanks.

Best Answer

Understandably there are a lot of answers, but if you still have any further questions maybe this will help.

An embedding of a topological space $X$ into a topological space $Y$ is a continuous map $e \colon X \to Y$ such that $e|_X$ is a homeomorphism onto its image.

Both the Klein bottle ($f \colon I^2 / \sim \to \mathbb{R}^3$) is not embedded into $\mathbb{R}^3$, because it has self-intersections; this means that the immersion of the Klein bottle is not a bijection, hence not a homeomorphism, so not an embedding.

As I understand it, an immersion simply means that the tangent spaces are mapped injectively; i.e. that the map $D_p f \colon T_pI^2 \to T_{f(p)}\mathbb{R}^3$ is injective. In the Klein bottle example, at the self-intersection, any point of intersection has two distinct tangent planes, hence this map is injective.

I hope this makes some sense!

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