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.
Loop classes form the group under concatenation
Statement
For every pointed topological space , the product
is well defined and makes a group. Its identity is the class of the constant loop , and .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A topological space , a basepoint , and based loops at .
The loop-class set, concatenation order, constant loop and reversed loop are those of Based loops and the fundamental group.
Affine real coordinate maps are continuous, and finitely many continuous pieces agreeing on closed seams paste; hence the piecewise-affine reparametrisations used below are continuous. Reversal and constant paths are continuous (Sums, scalar multiples, products, absolute values, maxima, minima and quotients with nonvanishing denominator of continuous functions are continuous, as are constants, the identity and every polynomial function, Continuity may be checked on any open cover, and on any finite closed cover; composites of continuous maps are continuous, Paths, path-connected spaces and path components).
A path homotopy is a continuous map that fixes both path endpoints throughout the homotopy (Homotopies of continuous maps, homotopies relative to a subspace, and path homotopies relative to the endpoints).
Maps into products are continuous exactly when their components are continuous, and composites of continuous maps are continuous (A map into a product is continuous iff each of its components is; the projections are continuous and open; and each projection is surjective when every factor is nonempty, which for an infinite index set uses the Axiom of Choice, Continuity may be checked on any open cover, and on any finite closed cover; composites of continuous maps are continuous, claim 1).
For continuous maps into the convex line , the straight-line formula is a continuous homotopy (For continuous maps into a convex subset of , the straight-line formula defines a continuous homotopy).
Continuous maps defined on finitely many closed sets and agreeing on overlaps paste to a continuous map (Continuity may be checked on any open cover, and on any finite closed cover; composites of continuous maps are continuous, claim 3).
A group operation is associative, has a two-sided identity and gives every element a two-sided inverse (Group and abelian group).
Proof
If is an endpoint-fixed homotopy from to and one from to , define for and for ; the clauses agree because , and [L2], [L4], and [L6] make continuous, so and are endpoint-homotopic. Thus the proposed product is independent of representatives.
If is continuous with and , then [L5] makes continuous. Composing with by [L4] gives a continuous ; it takes values in , fixes , and joins to . Hence endpoint-fixing reparametrisation preserves a path class.
The formula for and for is continuous by [L2], [L4], and [L6], fixes both endpoints at , starts at , and ends at ; applying the same construction to contracts .
Put and define for , for , and for ; [L2] makes this continuous, the clauses agree at the seams, fixes , and direct substitution gives , so step 1.2 proves associativity on classes.
For one has , and for one has ; these continuous endpoint-fixing maps and step 1.2 show that is a two-sided identity.
Step 1.1 gives a well-defined operation, step 2.1 gives associativity, step 2.2 gives the identity, and step 1.3 gives the two-sided inverse ; these are exactly the axioms in [L7], so is a group.
Depends on
- Based loops and the fundamental group
- Paths, path-connected spaces and path components
- Homotopies of continuous maps, homotopies relative to a subspace, and path homotopies relative to the endpoints
- Continuity may be checked on any open cover, and on any finite closed cover; composites of continuous maps are continuous
- A map into a product is continuous iff each of its components is; the projections are continuous and open; and each projection is surjective when every factor is nonempty, which for an infinite index set uses the Axiom of Choice
- Sums, scalar multiples, products, absolute values, maxima, minima and quotients with nonvanishing denominator of continuous functions are continuous, as are constants, the identity and every polynomial function
- For continuous maps into a convex subset of $\mathbb{R}^n$, the straight-line formula defines a continuous homotopy
- Group and abelian group
Used by
- Simply connected topological spaces Definition
- The homomorphism on fundamental groups induced by a pointed continuous map Definition
- A path between basepoints induces an isomorphism of fundamental groups Example
- The fundamental groupoid of a topological space Example
- Every nonempty convex subset of ℝⁿ is simply connected Theorem
- Induced fundamental-group maps are well defined, functorial and invariant under based homotopy Theorem
Cited to discharge well-definedness by Based loops and the fundamental group.
Dependency tree · next 3 levels
Direct dependencies and their dependencies through the next three levels: 125 results over 18 levels. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, and this result sits at the bottom with a heavier outline. Click the chart to enlarge it.
Sources
- A. Hatcher, Algebraic Topology, Chapter 1, Proposition 1.3 (standard reference, not scraped)