Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
1. We work in the category of compact polyhedral spaces and polyhedral maps ((5)). Given spaces M and Q and a map f: M → Q, we define Ur(f) to be the set of points x ∈ M such that f−1f(x) contains at least r points. Sr(f) is the closure of Ur(f) in M. f is an embedding if it is a homeomorphism into, and an immersion if it is locally an embedding. We shall call f a simple immersion if S3(f) = ø and the connected components of S2(f) are individually embedded by f. Obviously a simple immersion is an immersion. If M and Q are manifolds (as they will be for the rest of the paper)f: M → Q is proper if it takes ∂M, the boundary of M, into ∂Q. In (2) the following result was proved:
Theorem 1. Let Mmbe(2m−q)-connected and Qq be(2m−q + 1)-connected, m ≤ q−3. Then any proper map f: M → Q which embeds ∂M is homotopic rel ∂M to an embedding.