Proof of Fundamental Theorem of Algebra

Subhadeep Pal
Roll: 3-10-15-0063
Supervisor-Pabitra Debnath
Department of Mathematics
St. Xavier ’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata

25th April,2018
WHAT IS FUNDAMENTAL
THEOREM OF ALGEBRA?
A polynomial equation of degree n with real or complex coefficient has n roots if
the roots are counted according to their multiplicities.

Equivalently (by definition), the theorem states that the field of complex

numbers is algebraically closed.
WHY THE FUNDAMENTAL THEOREM
OF ALGEBRA IS SO FUNDAMENTAL?
The importance of Fundamental Theorem of Algebra is somewhat lengthy
roughly speaking the theorem limits the number of types of functions you need
to know to do calculus , we only need to know polynomials, trigonometric, and
exponential functions to do most of the calculus.
WHAT WILL BE OUR
APPROACH?
Our approach will be to compute the Fundamental Group of Circle through
Algebraic Topology and to prove the theorem.
PRELIMINARY CONCEPT
Homotopy: Let be two spaces and be two continuous maps. We say that and is homotopic ( ) if a continuous
map such that and and if is a constant map, we say that is nulhomotopic.

The map is the homotopy from to

Path: A continuous map is said to be a path in from initial point to terminal point such that and
PRELIMINARY CONCEPT
The Inverse Path and the constant path: Suppose is a path then, the inverse path is the path traced in the
reversed direction namely the map given by The initial point of is the terminal point of and vice versa. The
constant path at is the path given by
WHAT IS PATH-
HOMOTOPY?
Path Homotopy: Let and are two paths in with the same initial and terminal points, i.e,.We will say that is equivalent
to ,and write it as , if there exists a homotopy between and relative to the set of, In other words, the homotopy keeps the
end points fixed.

Thus the pathis equivalent to if there exists a continuous map

Such that

For all and for all .

Theorem: Let for the set of all the paths starting from and terminating at , path homotopy is an equivalence relation.
In other words, the path changes continuously and finally it becomes the path but during all this
transformation the end points remain fixed and sometimes it is called path homotopy.
END POINTS ARE FIXED
DURING THE DEFORMATION
DEFINING FUNDAMENTAL
GROUP
Loop: A continuous map is said to be a loop based at ,a point space X if ) = .Next we are going to deal with only

loops based at .If and be two loops based at which are also equivalent i.e. .

Now suppose we pick out a point which we call our base point we will restrict ourselves to the loops based at The

set of these path-homotopy classes forms a group under a well defined binary operation . It will be called the

fundamental group of and from is denoted by (

Fundamental Group: ( and when .

DEFINING THE GROUP
OPERATION
Product of Paths: If and are two paths in such that , then we can define a new path, called the product of and
denoted by , as follows:

Group Operation: Let, , be any two elements of (. Then we define

=.

Now under this operation

Associativity holds.

For each element unique inverse element exists and also inverse element exists.

Fundamental group is independent of the base-point.

WHAT IS INDUCED
HOMOMORPHISMS OF GROUP?
is a continuous map that carries to denote it by ) ). If is a loop based at in then, is a loop based
at in .

Thus gives rise to a map : ) ) defined by =, which is called the induced by relative to the base
point .

Theorem: If and are continuous, then If is the identity map, then is the identity
homomorphism.

Corollary: If is a homeomorphism of with , then is an isomorphism of with

WHAT ARE SIMPLY
CONNECTED SPACES?
Simply Connected: a path-connected topological space is simply connected if and only if its fundamental group is
trivial.

Lemma: Let and are two paths in from to They are path-homotopic.

Theorem: Suppose is a convex subset of . If are any two paths in with the same domain and the same
starting and ending points and respectively then and are path-homotopic to each other.

Corollary: Every convex subset of is simply connected.

In particular, the unit ball of

has trivial fundamental group.

COVERING SPACES
AN IMPORTANT NOTION TO COMPUTE THE FUNDAMENTAL GROUP
OF CIRCLE

Definition: Let be a continuous surjective map. The open set U of B is said to be evenly covered by p
if the inverse image can be written as the union of disjoint open sets in E such that for each , the
restriction of p to is a homeomorphism of onto U. The collection will be called a partition of into
slices.

Definition: Let be continuous and surjective. If every point b of B has a neighborhood U that is
evenly covered by p, then p is called a covering map, and E is said to be a covering space of .
If U is an open set that is evenly covered by p, we often picture the set as a "stack of
pancakes" each having the same size and shape as U, floating in the air above U ; the map p
squashes them all down onto U . See Figure note that if U is evenly covered by p and W is an
open set contained in U, then W is also evenly covered by p.
COMPUTING THE FUNDAMENTAL
GROUP OF CIRCLE
Theorem: The map given by the equation is a covering map.
What is lifting?
 Lifting map: Let be a map. If is a continuous mapping of some space into B, a lifting of is a map
such that
SOME EXAMPLES OF LIFTING MAPS
ARE EXPLAINED THROUGH PICTURES

Consider the covering of Theorem .The path beginning at given by lifts to the path
beginning at 0 and ending at As shown in the first figure.
FUNDAMENTAL GROUP OF CIRCLE IS
ISOMORPHIC TO ADDITIVE GROUP OF ALL
INTEGERS
Lifting Correspondence: Let be a covering map; let. Choose so that . Given an element of, let be the
lifting of to a path in E that begins at. Let, denote the end point of Then, is a well-defined, set map

We call the lifting correspondence derived from the covering map . It depends of course on the choice
of the point.

Theorem: Let be a covering map; let If E is path-connected, then the lifting correspondence is
surjective. If E is simply connected, it is bijective.

Theorem: The fundamental group of is isomorphic to the additive group of integers.

RETRACTIONS AND SOME
RELATED RESULTS
Retraction: If , a retraction of onto is a continuous map such that is the identity map of If such a map r
exists, then we say that A is retract of X.

Theorem: If A is retract of X , then the homomorphism of fundamental groups induced by

inclusion is injective.

Let be a continuous mapping. Then the following conditions arte equivalent:

1) is nulhomotopic.

2) extends to a continuous map

3)is the trivial homomorphism of fundamental groups.

PROOF OF THE FUNDAMENTAL
THEOREM OF ALGEBRA
Step 1 : Consider the map given by , where z is a complex number. We show that the induced
homomorphism of fundamental groups is injective.

Let be the standard loop in ,

=.

This loop lifts to the path sin the covering space. Say, is a lifting path in of

So,

(taking the principal complex Logaritm)

With as the lifting correspondence of, we have, where

:then :. Now, the equivalence class is a generator of the domain group of,i.e., . Now, corresponds through the lifting
correspondence to . We conclude that is “multiplication by n.” More precisely, if for .We have, then , or.

We can think of this statement as follows,

is basically a path having domainHere to show the functional equality,

We will show it for each the two functions are equal,

As, we have previously stated in this theorem about the lifting path, intuitively the lifting path of ,whose domain
is again starts from 0 and ends at in so, it wraps the path times around the circle that is basically ( times, the
notation denotes the product of the path which is again refers to the fundamental group operation).Now since ,is
a group homomorphism we have that,( times ordinary addition operation of integers).So, we are done. Suppose.
Since is one to one then, and so, we have

(notice that since we hypothesized ).

Since is a function and

Then,

We have shown that

Step 2: Let be the map. Then map equals the map of Step 1 followed by the inclusion map.
Now is one to one by Step 1. Let be the homomorphism induced by. Since is a retract of, thenis
one to one. Therefore is one to one and Since, is isomorphic to integers, then cannot be the
trivial homomorphism.

So, is not nulhomotopic.

Step 3: We now prove a special case of the Fundamental Theorem.

For the given polynomial equation

Suppose, | |+| |+· · ·+ ||+| | < 1

Assume the original polynomial equation has no root in the closed unit disk in . Then we can
define a map by the equation =.

Of course, kis continuous on. Let be the restriction of to. Then h extends to a continuous map on
(namely, map), is nulhomotopic.

On the other hand, define by the equation .

Then , for all and
Now is never 0 since for all. Also is never 0, since, its extension to is never 0 by the assumption.
Now for 0 < < 1 we have | |> 0| | = |)|
1− |)| by the Triangle Inequality in
1− ) by the Triangle Inequality in
= 1 − )> 0
since and so |z| = 1 and | |+| |+· · ·+ ||+| | < 1

So is a homotopy from to and they are path-homotopic. Since h is nulhomotopic (i.e., homotopic to a
constant path) then is nulhomotopic. But in Step 2, we saw that is not nulhomotopic, so we have a
contradiction. This contradiction shows the assumption that the polynomial equation has no zero in is
false. Hence the polynomial equation under the restriction | |+| |+· · ·+ ||+| | < 1 has a zero in.
Step 4: We now prove the Fundamental Theorem for a general polynomial equation
= 0.
Choose real number sufficiently large so that

(this can be done since the limit as of each of the summands is 0).
Let x = cy. The polynomial equation then becomes
=0
or (dividing both sides by )
=0
Now the polynomial on the left hand side satisfies condition by the choice of c.
So by previous part, this equation has a root, say. Then is a root of the original general
polynomial equation.
FINALLY WE CONCLUDE
THAT…
As stated here, the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra implies that every
complex polynomial (that is, every element of the polynomial ring ) has a
complex zero. This property is sometimes called “algebraically closed” So
the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra can be restated as “The complex
number field is algebraically closed”.
Thank You