Higher Dimensions
The connection with the Euler characteristic χ suggests the correct generalisation: the 2n-sphere has no non-vanishing vector field for n ≥ 1. The difference in even and odd dimension is that the Betti numbers of the m-sphere are 0 except in dimensions 0 and m. Therefore their alternating sum χ is 2 for m even, and 0 for m odd.
Read more about this topic: Hairy Ball Theorem
Famous quotes containing the words higher and/or dimensions:
“Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts and his higher natureand another woman to help him forget them.”
—Helen Rowland (18751950)
“It seems to me that we do not know nearly enough about ourselves; that we do not often enough wonder if our lives, or some events and times in our lives, may not be analogues or metaphors or echoes of evolvements and happenings going on in other people?or animals?even forests or oceans or rocks?in this world of ours or, even, in worlds or dimensions elsewhere.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)