Constructive algebraic topology (Q1612751)

The classical computation methods in algebraic topology usually fail to be constructive. For example when working with an exact sequence there is the problem of computing the precise extension, or with a spectral sequence one needs to find the higher order differentials. This paper reviews the work that has been done in the direction of the Karoubi program to find algebraic structures that can constructively compute the homotopy groups of a simply connected space. The Rubio-Sergeraert solution is based on the idea that the computation of homotopy groups is to be done by a sequence of functional algorithms that allow effective computation. In a nutshell the idea can be summarized as follows. The chain complex of a simply connected space allows one to compute the first homotopy group explicitly. If one could construct the chain complex of the loop space this would allow one to compute the next homotopy group, the hard part is finding the differentials. However if the chain complex is algorithmically replaced by a (much larger) homotopy equivalent object it can be possible to derive explicitly the comparable object for the loop space. This paper announces the implementation of a functional program written in Lisp that implements these ideas. The program is available from the web at \url{http://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~sergerar/Kenzo}.