Transversality theorem

In differential topology, the transversality theorem, also known as the Thom transversality theorem after French mathematician René Thom, is a major result that describes the transverse intersection properties of a smooth family of smooth maps. It says that transversality is a generic property: any smooth map ${\displaystyle f\colon X\rightarrow Y}$, may be deformed by an arbitrary small amount into a map that is transverse to a given submanifold ${\displaystyle Z\subseteq Y}$. Together with the Pontryagin–Thom construction, it is the technical heart of cobordism theory, and the starting point for surgery theory. The finite-dimensional version of the transversality theorem is also a very useful tool for establishing the genericity of a property which is dependent on a finite number of real parameters and which is expressible using a system of nonlinear equations. This can be extended to an infinite-dimensional parametrization using the infinite-dimensional version of the transversality theorem.