DefinitionDefinition: Literature-sourcedProof: Not applicablePipeline-generatedjudge pass (gpt-5.6-terra)audited 2026-09-07

How statement and proof provenance work

The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.

Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.

These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.

Degree of a self map of an oriented sphere

Definition

Let $n \geq 1$ . Choose a generator $[S^{n}]$ of $H_{n} (S^{n}; Z) ≅ Z$ , using Homology of spheres. For a continuous self-map $f : S^{n} \to S^{n}$ , its degree is the unique integer satisfying $f_{*} [S^{n}] = \deg (f) [S^{n}] .$ The induced map is furnished by Functoriality of relative homology with empty subspaces. Replacing the same generator in source and target by its negative does not change the integer. For a map between separately oriented copies of $S^{n}$ , use their separately specified generators; reversing just one orientation changes the sign. The unreduced definition here is restricted to $n \geq 1$ .

Depends on

Used by

Degree is not defined by top homology for self maps of s zero Counterexample
Local degree at an isolated preimage Definition
A map of nonzero degree between spheres is surjective Lemma
Degree is homotopy invariant and multiplicative under composition Proposition
Degree of identity constant reflection and antipodal sphere maps Proposition
Suspension preserves sphere map degree Proposition

Dependency tree · two levels

8 results within two dependency steps of this one, each drawn at its shortest distance from it. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, so the chart reads left to right and ends at this result, which carries a heavier outline. Every node is a link to that result. Click elsewhere on the chart to enlarge it.

Sources

Hatcher, Algebraic Topology, Degree, definition p.134 (standard reference, not scraped)