Problem from A Beautiful Mind

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The discussion centers on a mathematical problem presented in the movie "A Beautiful Mind," specifically regarding the first deRham cohomology group of R^3 minus a subset X. Participants note that the dimension of V/W is 8, contingent on identifying what X represents. The conversation also touches on the significance of vector calculus operators like curl and cross-product in this context. Additional resources related to the Nash problem and cohomology are shared for further exploration. Understanding the problem requires clarification of the subset X in R^3.
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Problem from "A Beautiful Mind"

In the movie when he first walks into teach that ad cal class, this is the problem he wrote on the board (verbatim):

V=\{F:\mathbb{R}^3\backslash X\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^3:\nabla\times F=0\}

W=\{F=\nabla g\}

\dim (V/W)=?

What's X?
 
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V/W is the first deRham cohomology group of the space R^3\X, where X is presumably some subset of R^3.
 


Just finished reading the biog. A good read. Can't help with the above math though.
 


Can't solve it without X.
 


Dim(v/w) = 8 instead of question mark.

inverse cohomology problem to find a manifold M with a 8-dimensional fundamental group.
 


Dragonfall said:
What's X?

\times is the vector cross-product.

\nabla\times is the vector calculus "curl" operator.
 


AlephZero said:
\times is the vector cross-product.

In that case, what does \mathbb{R}^3 \slash \times signify?
 


Firstly the person is right in saying \times is the x but that is not what the person is referring to, they are asking what the X means in X\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{3}. But I believe the person is right in saying it is the first deRham cohomology group.
 


Material on the Nash problem:

1) http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080501140727AAb2Ys1", Yahoo Answers

2) A beautiful mind http://www.math.harvard.edu/~huizenga/LECTURE35WS.PDF" .

3) http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/teaching/math21a/nash.pdf" , Spring 2004

4) "www.wfu.edu/~parslerj/math733/lecture%20notes%201-4.pdf"[/URL], Math 733: Vector Fields, Differential Forms, and Cohomology
[PLAIN]http://www.wfu.edu/~parslerj/math733/note.html" , R. Jason Parsley
 
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