String fullTitle = 'Math book recommendation request';
int postNumber = 16139498;
String image = '1713737927253531.jpg';
String date = '04/21/24(Sun)18:18:47';
String comment = 'Easy to grasp algebraic topology book, that goes upto Seifert Van Kampen and many solved examples of calculating fundamental groups, and also, providing geometric intuition';
'>>16139498
You've tried Hatcher, I assume?';
'>>16139498
May';
'>>16139803
Yeah and I got my ass handed to me i found munkres topology better';
'>>16139904
That is even harder than hatcher';
'>>16139498
What don't you understand about Seifert van Kampen? You don't even need a textbook for that. It's as intuitive as it can get. Literally the Wikipedia or any duckduckgo result already covers everything you need to know.';
'>>16141637
I need solved examples, examples of fundamental groups being calculated, more slower, detailed books, with pictures and geometric intuition';
'>>16142269
have you tried asking chatgpt for examples and worked-out solutions?
one fundamental group that can be calculated by Siefert-van Kampen is that of the surface of a torus. we obtain the torus by gluing the boundaries of the closed unit square in the usual way, i.e. formally the torus is a quotient space T=[0,1]2/~; let q be the quotient map. divide the unit square into two overlapping open subsets, one being an open square like U=(1/5, 4/5)2 and another being a "fat border" (e.g. V=[0,1]2 [2/5, 3/5]2). choose any point p in the overlap as basepoint. can you figure out the overlap U cap V? and the fundamental groups of q(U cap V), q(U) and q(V)? can you calculate the fundamental group of the torus? if you can't, consider asking chatgpt';
'>>16139498
I was never able to find a book that worked for me. Good luck.';
'>>16142372
Good books make things easier a lot';
'>>16142667
Book nerds Are worse than druggies but for words';
'>>16142269
Algebraic topology is not the kind of math anymore where you do dozens of examples as you did in calculus. Nobody got time for that. Seifert van Kampen is basically over once you can recite the theorem and have seen the basic examples of genus g surfaces and wedge sums of circles. Time to move on to the next topics like covering spaces, homology and long exact sequences.';
'>>16142699
Ok, but give me some book suggestions. Is hatcher the best one there is';
}