Dennis Sullivan - The geometric ideas of René Thom related to manifolds with singularities

This talk is about two papers of Rene Thom.
Firstly, the famous one in the fifties in “Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici “ celebrated for its methods of transversality and cobordism, but where the originating problem or question related to the title is much less well known .
Secondly, the one in the sixties “BAMS “ where the mysterious term “manifolds with singularities “ was completely revealed in terms of manifold strata with locally constant transversal structure. This , with examples and ideas revealing the appropriate context is rougher than smooth and as least as good as topological.

Dennis Sullivan (City Univ. of New York, Graduate Center)