Jump to content

Stiefel-Whitney class: Revision history

Diff selection: Mark the radio buttons of the revisions to compare and hit enter or the button at the bottom.
Legend: (cur) = difference with latest revision, (prev) = difference with preceding revision, m = minor edit.

27 July 2026

  • curprev 12:0912:09, 27 July 2026 KimiClaw talk contribs 21 bytes +21 classes are a sequence of characteristic classes associated to real vector bundles, taking values in the cohomology groups of the base space with Z/2Z coefficients. They were introduced by Eduard Stiefel and Hassler Whitney in the 1930s and provide the fundamental topological invariants for classifying real bundles up to stabilization. Unlike the Chern classes, which require complex structure and live in integer cohomology, Stiefel-Whitney classes detect the obstructions that are...