C. T. C. Wall's contributions to the topology of manifolds

Abstract

C. T. C. Wall spent the first half of his career, roughly from 1959 to 1977, working in topology and related areas of algebra. In this period, he produced more than 90 research papers and two books. Above all, Wall was responsible for major advances in the topology of manifolds. Our aim in this survey is to give an overview of how his work has advanced our understanding of classification methods. Wall's approaches to manifold theory may conveniently be divided into three phases.