Smale conjecture

The Smale conjecture, named after Stephen Smale is the statement that the diffeomorphism group of the 3-sphere has the homotopy-type of its isometry group, the orthogonal group O(4). It was proved in 1983 by Allen Hatcher.

Equivalent statements

There are several equivalent statements of the Smale conjecture. One is that the component of the unknot in the space of smooth embeddings of the circle in 3-space has the homotopy-type of the round circles, equivalently, O(3). Another equivalent statement is that the group of diffeomorphisms of the 3-ball which restrict to the identity on the boundary is contractible.

References

• S. Smale, "Diffeomorphisms of the 2-sphere", Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 1959.
• Hatcher, "A proof of the Smale conjecture", $\scriptstyle {\mathrm {Diff} }(S^{3})\simeq {\mathrm {O} }(4)$. Ann. Math. (2) 117 (1983), no. 3, 553–607.