Manifolds and Disc-presheaves
arXiv:2509.26392
Abstract
This essay explains an approach to the study of smooth manifolds which compares them to presheaves on a category of discs, also known as embedding calculus. We highlight recent work that shows this approach has many desirable properties, as well as recent applications demonstrating its strength.
arXiv comment20 pages, 1 figure. Contribution to the Proceedings of the 2026 ICM