The Euler characteristic is a fundamental topological invariant that provides insight into the shape or structure of a geometric object. It is defined for a polyhedron as the formula:
where represents the number of vertices, the number of edges, and the number of faces. This characteristic can be generalized to other topological spaces, where it is often denoted as for a space . The Euler characteristic helps in classifying surfaces; for example, a sphere has an Euler characteristic of , while a torus has an Euler characteristic of . In essence, the Euler characteristic serves as a bridge between geometry and topology, revealing essential properties about the connectivity and structure of spaces.
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