For a finite wedge sum of spheres of dimensions , let with and zero differential. Its Chevalley–Eilenberg cochains of a graded Lie algebra are a minimal commutative differential graded algebra: one generator dual to each Lie basis word has degree one more than that word, and its differential is dual to the Lie bracket. Its cohomology is with all positive products zero. One way to compute this is ; the augmentation module has a length-one free resolution, so the corresponding Ext has only the unit and the dual generating classes.
Let . Its quotient cell structure has one cell in each of dimensions . In particular is five-connected. The relative cohomology sequence, or its cellular cochain complex, gives
The subscripts denote degrees. Under the quotient map back to , the three positive classes pull back to . All positive products vanish, since their degree is at least twelve. Thus the cohomology ring of a collapsed projective subspace in this case is the square-zero algebra on these three classes.
Now compute its Sullivan minimal model , using cohomological grading and the convention that even generators generate a polynomial ring and odd generators an exterior algebra. Five-connectivity gives for . Since a minimal differential is decomposable, it cannot have a nonzero value below degree twelve. Matching cohomology through degree ten therefore forces
with no other generators in degrees at most ten. The first products must then be killed by generators
These follow by killing respectively the unwanted degree-twelve, degree-fourteen, and two degree-sixteen classes. Subsequent generators kill and the resulting syzygies. For example is closed of degree nineteen, so it requires a further generator of degree eighteen. Thus the full minimal model is not just the algebra on the first seven generators.
There is nevertheless a simple map from the full model to : send to the three displayed classes and every other generator to zero. It is a chain map, since every generator differential is a sum of products of positive-degree elements, and all positive products in vanish. It induces an isomorphism in cohomology: the entire cohomology of is concentrated in degrees , and its indicated basis maps to the indicated basis of . This proves formality of a topological space and identifies the full minimal model as a minimal resolution of , rather than only matching the initial part of its cohomology.
An explicit description of that full resolution is useful. Take the free graded Lie algebra
Its Chevalley–Eilenberg cochain algebra has one generator of degree for every homogeneous Lie basis word , and its quadratic differential is dual to the bracket, with the usual graded signs. Rescaling the bracket-word duals gives exactly the generators and differentials listed above. Positive Lie degrees make this algebra Sullivan minimal. Its cohomology is : the universal enveloping algebra is , and the augmentation module has the exact free resolution
Exactness is immediate because every nonempty tensor word has a unique last letter. Applying gives just the unit and the three dual classes in total degrees ; products of positive classes land in an absent Ext degree two and are zero. Chevalley–Eilenberg cochains of a graded Lie algebra compute this Ext, so this also verifies the full model's cohomology.
The wedge sum has the same connectivity, cohomology ring, and initial closed minimal generators. The same full-model-to- argument applies to , so its minimal model is also , by uniqueness of Sullivan minimal models of quasi-isomorphic simply connected rational cochain algebras. The Sullivan minimal-model classification identifies isomorphic minimal models with the same rational homotopy type. Consequently
The explicit infinite minimal resolution above is shared by both spaces.