James D. Stasheff works on topology and its algebraic structures. With John Milnor, he wrote Characteristic Classes by John Milnor and James D. Stasheff, developing invariants that detect how vector bundles twist over a space.[ref]
Characteristic Classes by John Milnor and James D. Stasheff. Original book byline and characteristic-class development
The total Pontryagin class illustrates the importance of coefficient conventions: its product formula is stated modulo elements of order two in their theorem. Keeping that qualification prevents an integral statement from being inferred from a result valid only after removing a torsion ambiguity.[ref]
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