The classification of closed orientable surfaces says that they are all spheres with a certain number of handles attached. For example, a sphere is a sphere with 0 handles. A torus is a sphere with one handle. A two holed torus is a sphere with two handles etc. How does one "attach a handle"? Think of puncturing a surface as "removing a lid". After all if you make a puncture, you can stretch out the hole into a square shape which you can think of as being the ghost of a panel in the construction of the original surface. So the puncture is removing a lid. What does "removing a lid" do to the Euler characteristic and number of boundary curves?
Hey, ML, why didn't you use Y@hoo! Answers like everyone else in Finston's math class? Are those even your real initials? Mysterious. He tells you how to attach a handle in the next bullet point. Removing a lid does nothing to the Euler characteristic but increases the number of boundary curves. I could be wrong after all I don't really pay attention. See you next Monday.
