manifold
December 14, 2020•105 words
A manifold is a connected region.
Mathematically, it is a set of points, associated with a neighborhood around each point. From any given point, the manifold locally appears to be a Euclidean space. In everyday life, we experience the surface of the world as a 2-D plane, but it is in fact a spherical manifold in 3-D space.
The definition of a neighborhood surrounding each point implies the existence of transformations that can be applied to move on the manifold from one position to a neighboring one. In the example of the world’s surface as a manifold, one can
walk north, south, east, or west.