This survey discusses explicit estimates for Betti numbers of algebraic varieties and their arith-metic applications.The guiding problem is to bound the total Betti number, or the compactly supported total Betti number, of a variety defined by equations of bounded degree in terms of the degree, the number of equations, and the ambient dimension.Such bounds are coarse topological invariants, but they become concrete constants in point-counting estimates, zeta functions, and exponential-sum problems over finite fields.We begin with classical estimates in topology and real algebraic geometry.After recalling ordinary and compactly supported cohomology, we review the Milnor-Thom bounds for real algebraic sets and the Smith-Thom comparison between real and complex points.These results show that Betti numbers are polynomially controlled in fixed ambient dimension, while also showing why realification gives estimates that are often too large for arithmetic use.We then turn to étale cohomology and the Weil conjectures.The Grothendieck trace formula relates point counts over finite fields to Frobenius traces on compactly supported cohomology, and Deligne’s theorem on weights controls the size of the corresponding eigenvalues.Thus explicit Betti bounds enter directly into Lang-Weil type estimates and into the control of zetafunctions.This provides the arithmetic motivation for asking for bounds that are not only finite, but explicit in the defining degrees.The second part of the survey concerns arbitrary characteristic.We recall the work of Bombieri and Katz, including Katz’s explicit compactly supported Betti bound and his question on ordinary Betti numbers.We then survey recent progress around this question: Ordinary Betti numbers of affine varieties admit explicit bounds of the expected order in the degree, while compactly supported Betti numbers admit sharp-order estimates.The proofs combine Euler characteristic estimates, weak Lefschetz theorems, stratification and reduction arguments, and, for complete intersections, degeneration ideas related to perverse sheaves.The survey also discusses the asymptotic behavior of affine complete intersections, where the leading order can be identified more precisely.These results clarify both the power of Katz’s method and the additional geometric input needed to reach optimal dependence on the degree.
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