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| | Simply connected space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
 | | Formally, such a simple object is called a connected space, but for our informal definition, we can just think of a simple object as being an object that's all one piece. |
 | | An equivalent formulation is this: X is simply connected if and only if it is path connected, and whenever p : [0,1] → X and q : [0,1] → X are two paths (i.e.: continuous maps) with the same start and endpoint (p(0) = q(0) and p(1) = q(1)), then p and q are homotopic relative {0,1}. |
 | | If a space X is not simply connected, one can often rectify this defect by using its universal cover, a simply connected space which maps to X in a particularly nice way. |
| en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Simply_connected (973 words) |
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