In
geometric topology
In mathematics, geometric topology is the study of manifolds and maps between them, particularly embeddings of one manifold into another.
History
Geometric topology as an area distinct from algebraic topology may be said to have originat ...
, a field within mathematics, the
obstruction to a finitely dominated space ''X'' being
homotopy-equivalent
In topology, a branch of mathematics, two continuous functions from one topological space to another are called homotopic (from grc, ὁμός "same, similar" and "place") if one can be "continuously deformed" into the other, such a defor ...
to a finite
CW-complex
A CW complex (also called cellular complex or cell complex) is a kind of a topological space that is particularly important in algebraic topology. It was introduced by J. H. C. Whitehead (open access) to meet the needs of homotopy theory. This cla ...
is its Wall finiteness obstruction ''w(X)'' which is an element in the reduced zeroth
algebraic K-theory
Algebraic ''K''-theory is a subject area in mathematics with connections to geometry, topology, ring theory, and number theory. Geometric, algebraic, and arithmetic objects are assigned objects called ''K''-groups. These are groups in the sense ...
of the integral
group ring
In algebra, a group ring is a free module and at the same time a ring, constructed in a natural way from any given ring and any given group. As a free module, its ring of scalars is the given ring, and its basis is the set of elements of the gi ...