Even rank of middle cohomology in dimension four k plus two
ID: even-rank-of-middle-cohomology-in-dimension-four-k-plus-two
For a closed oriented manifold, the rational middle-dimensional cup-product pairing is nondegenerate by Poincare duality. Its degree is odd, so graded commutativity makes it skew-symmetric. A nondegenerate skew-symmetric form has even dimension. In particular a closed oriented six-manifold cannot have a rank-one third cohomology group.
// Target: algebra.bigb
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