In mathematics, the Chern theorem (or the Chern–Gauss–Bonnet theorem after Shiing-Shen Chern, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Pierre Ossian Bonnet) states that the Euler-Poincaré characteristic (a topological invariant defined as the alternating sum of the Betti numbers of a topological space) of a closed even-dimensional Riemannian manifold is equal to the integral of a certain polynomial (the Euler class) of its curvature form (an ). Riemann-Roch and Atiyah-Singer are other generalizations of the Gauss-Bonnet theorem.