Lecture course at SISSA

[Ugo Bruzzo]

Professor Mauro Spreafico, from the University of Sao Carlos, Brazil,  
will
give a 20 hour course on

WHITEHEAD TORSION AND SIMPLE HOMOTOPY THEORY

The course will meet on Tuesdays at 9:30 am and Wednesdays at 11:30  
am in Room C,
basement, SISSA Main Building, starting from Tuesday, April 13.

Abstract. The aim of this course is to give an introduction to the  
theory of torsion invariants for spaces and
manifolds. In this first part we concentrate on the algebraic topologic 
al side of the theory, introducing the
denitions and the main properties of Whitehead torsion and Reidemeister 
-Franz torsion, with application to
simple homotopy classification of spaces.

Ugo Bruzzo