Classification of Riemannian Symmetric Spaces
The algebraic description of Riemannian symmetric spaces enabled Élie Cartan to obtain a complete classification of them in 1926.
For a given Riemannian symmetric space M let (G,K,σ,g) be the algebraic data associated to it. To classify possibly isometry classes of M, first note that the universal cover of a Riemannian symmetric space is again Riemannian symmetric, and the covering map is described by dividing the connected isometry group G of the covering by a subgroup of its center. Therefore we may suppose without loss of generality that M is simply connected. (This implies K is connected by the long exact sequence of a fibration, because G is connected by assumption.)
Read more about this topic: Symmetric Space
Famous quotes containing the word spaces:
“When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there. For there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)