On the Browder-Levine-Novikov embedding theorems

Abstract

In this survey we present applications of the ideas of complement and neighborhood in the theory embeddings of manifolds into Euclidean space (in codimension at least three). We describe how the combination of these ideas gives a reduction of embeddability and isotopy problems to algebraic problems. We present a more clarified exposition of the Browder-Levine theorem on realization of normal systems. Most of the survey is accessible to non-specialists in the theory of embeddings.