Talk:Hopf bundle
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I've been looking for an explanation of why the circles of the Hopf fibration become linked. This is a request for someone more knowledgeable to fill in this missing information - Gauge 17:51, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] natural metric?
This is a somewhat flaky question, but ... I'm wondering if there's a "natural" metric associated with a Hopf fibration. The "natural" metric on CP^n is the Fubini-Study metric, which is identical to the ordinary metric on the two-sphere for CP^1. I can certainly pullback the metric on S^2 to define a metric on S^3, but I'm wondering how "natural" this really is, if it has any interesting non-intuitive or enligtening properties.
For example, if I envision S^3 as the EUcliden space R^3 that we live in, with an extra point at infinity, then the Hopf fibration fills this space with non-intersection circles (as illstrated by the "keyring fibration" photo). Each circle has a center ... what is the density of the distribution of the centers of these circles in R^3, (assuming a uniform density on S^2)? Are the centers of these circles always confined to a plane? What is the distribution on the plane? Uniform? Gaussian? Each circle defines a direction (the normal to the plane containing the circle). What is the distribution of these directions? linas 16:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)