Milnor conjecture

The Milnor conjecture, proposed by John Milnor in the 1950s, is a statement in the field of algebraic topology, particularly concerning the nature of the relationship between the topology of smooth manifolds and algebraic invariants known as characteristic classes. The conjecture specifically relates to the Milnor's "h-cobordism" theorem and the properties of the "stable" smooth structures on high-dimensional manifolds.