Lecture Notes in Mathematics

The book explores the possibility of extending the notions of "Grassmannian" and "Gauss map" to the PL category. They are distinguished from "classifying space" and "classifying map" which are essentially homotopy-theoretic notions. The analogs of Grassmannian and Gauss map defined incorporate geometric and combinatorial information. Principal applications involve characteristic class theory, smoothing theory, and the existence of immersion satifying certain geometric criteria, e.g. curvature conditions. The book assumes knowledge of basic differential topology and bundle theory, including Hirsch-Gromov-Phillips theory, as well as the analogous theories for the PL category. The work should be of interest to mathematicians concerned with geometric topology, PL and PD aspects of differential geometry and the geometry of polyhedra.