Fiber Bundles and Homotopy

Book excerpt: This book is an introduction to fiber bundles and fibrations. But the ultimate goal is to make the reader feel comfortable with basic ideas in homotopy theory. The author found that the classification of principal fiber bundles is an ideal motivation for this purpose. The notion of homotopy appears naturally in the classification. Basic tools in homotopy theory such as homotopy groups and their long exact sequence need to be introduced. Furthermore, the notion of fibrations, which is one of three important classes of maps in homotopy theory, can be obtained by extracting the most essential properties of fiber bundles. The book begins with elementary examples and then gradually introduces abstract definitions when necessary. The reader is assumed to be familiar with point-set topology, but it is the only requirement for this book.