discussion

This makes reference to the phrase, “nevertheless, she persisted.” Find out more about the origins of this phrase here.

Persistence is a fundamental concept in topological data analysis. Suppose we have some topological space $F$, and a filtration of nested subspaces $\emptyset = F_0 \subseteq F_1 \ldots \subseteq F$. We can apply the homology functor to this filtration, with the inclusion maps of the filtration inducing maps on the level of homology. Any homology class that is not in the kernel of the composition of many maps (how many is subjective) is considered to be a persistent feature. Thus, “nevertheless, she remained a representative of her homology class for many steps of the filtration’’ means, “nevertheless, she persisted.’’