Synthetic differential geometry

In mathematics, synthetic differential geometry is a formalization of the theory of differential geometry in the language of topos theory. There are several insights that allow for such a reformulation. The first is that most of the analytic data for describing the class of smooth manifolds can be encoded into certain fibre bundles on manifolds: namely bundles of jets (see also jet bundle). The second insight is that the operation of assigning a bundle of jets to a smooth manifold is functorial in nature. The third insight is that over a certain category, these are representable functors. Furthermore, their representatives are related to the algebras of dual numbers, so that smooth infinitesimal analysis may be used.

Contents

• Anders kock synthetic differential geometry new methods for old spaces
• Synthetic differential geometry lent 2016
• References

Synthetic differential geometry can serve as a platform for formulating certain otherwise obscure or confusing notions from differential geometry. For example, the meaning of what it means to be natural (or invariant) has a particularly simple expression, even though the formulation in classical differential geometry may be quite difficult.