We develop the notion of the good pants homology and show that it agrees with
the standard homology on closed surfaces (the good pants are pairs of pants
whose cuffs have the length nearly equal to some large number R). Combined with
our previous work on the Surface Subgroup Theorem, this yields a proof of the
Ehrenpreis conjecture.Comment: Revised to incorporate the advice of the referee. Appendix 2 has been
substantially rewritten. 78 page
