CW complex
A CW complex is like a pretend toy town that we can use to study mathematics. It's made up of different sized pieces that fit together like building blocks. Just like how you can build a toy town with different sized blocks, we can build a CW complex with different sized pieces called cells.
Some cells look like a little circle or a little ball or a little disk. We can stick these cells together to make bigger shapes like spheres, tori, or even donut shapes!
But there's a rule we have to follow when building our pretend toy town. We can only glue parts of the cells together in certain directions. Imagine a ball flattened out like a pancake. We can only stick parts of the pancake-shaped cell to other cells in certain directions. This rule is called attaching the cells.
We can keep attaching cells together to make more and more complicated shapes, like a house, a skyscraper, or even a really big castle. But each cell we attach has to follow the rule of attaching in certain directions.
By building and studying CW complexes, mathematicians can better understand interesting patterns and shapes in the world around us.
Some cells look like a little circle or a little ball or a little disk. We can stick these cells together to make bigger shapes like spheres, tori, or even donut shapes!
But there's a rule we have to follow when building our pretend toy town. We can only glue parts of the cells together in certain directions. Imagine a ball flattened out like a pancake. We can only stick parts of the pancake-shaped cell to other cells in certain directions. This rule is called attaching the cells.
We can keep attaching cells together to make more and more complicated shapes, like a house, a skyscraper, or even a really big castle. But each cell we attach has to follow the rule of attaching in certain directions.
By building and studying CW complexes, mathematicians can better understand interesting patterns and shapes in the world around us.
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