Extrinsic Euler characteristic of a non-immersed hypersurface (focal surfaces, pedal images, and extrinsic Morse indices) (Q884013)

The author uses elementary descriptive methods to extend the Euler characteristic formula for the image of a compact 2-manifold mapped into a 3-manifold subject to regularity conditions at the singular points of the mapping. In addition to Boy's ``terminating double points'' and triple points he allows stable conical singularities which occur generically in focal surfaces and in pedal surfaces in Euclidean 3-space. As a consequence he derives a Morse theoretic formula for this extrinsic Euler characteristic in terms of a height function and its extrinsic Morse indices.