Pullback of Smooth Functions and Smooth Maps
Let φ:M→ N be a smooth map between (smooth) manifolds M and N, and suppose f:N→R is a smooth function on N. Then the pullback of f by φ is the smooth function φ*f on M defined by (φ*f)(x) = f(φ(x)). Similarly, if f is a smooth function on an open set U in N, then the same formula defines a smooth function on the open set φ-1(U) in M. (In the language of sheaves, pullback defines a morphism from the sheaf of smooth functions on N to the direct image by φ of the sheaf of smooth functions on M.)
More generally, if f:N→A is a smooth map from N to any other manifold A, then φ*f(x)=f(φ(x)) is a smooth map from M to A.
Read more about this topic: Pullback (differential Geometry)
Famous quotes containing the words smooth, functions and/or maps:
“Hail ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road of it! like grace and beauty which beget inclinations to love at first sight; ‘tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The English masses are lovable: they are kind, decent, tolerant, practical and not stupid. The tragedy is that there are too many of them, and that they are aimless, having outgrown the servile functions for which they were encouraged to multiply. One day these huge crowds will have to seize power because there will be nothing else for them to do, and yet they neither demand power nor are ready to make use of it; they will learn only to be bored in a new way.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the continual creative play of urban living. The city as we imagine it, then, soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)