This is an introduction to recent developments in algebraic combinatorics and an illustration of how research in mathematics actually progresses. The author recounts the story of the search for and discovery of a proof of a formula conjectured in the late 1970s: the number of n x n alternating sign matrices, objects that generalize permutation matrices. While apparent that the conjecture must be true, the proof was elusive. Researchers became drawn to this problem, making connections to aspects of invariant theory, to symmetric functions, to hypergeometric and basic hypergeometric series, and, finally, to the six-vertex model of statistical mechanics. All these threads are brought together in Zeilberger's 1996 proof of the original conjecture. The book is accessible to anyone with a knowledge of linear algebra. Students will learn what mathematicians actually do in an interesting and new area of mathematics, and even researchers in combinatorics will find something new here.
This book focuses on a single problem: how to factor a large integer or prove its prime. From the Sieve of Eratosthenes of ancient Greece to the Multiple Polynomial Quadratic Sieve and the Elliptic Cu
Meant for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics, this lively introduction to measure theory and Lebesgue integration is rooted in and motivated by the historical questions that led to its development. The author stresses the original purpose of the definitions and theorems and highlights some of the difficulties that were encountered as these ideas were refined. The story begins with Riemann's definition of the integral, a definition created so that he could understand how broadly one could define a function and yet have it be integrable. The reader then follows the efforts of many mathematicians who wrestled with the difficulties inherent in the Riemann integral, leading to the work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries of Jordan, Borel, and Lebesgue, who finally broke with Riemann's definition. Ushering in a new way of understanding integration, they opened the door to fresh and productive approaches to many of the previously intractable problems of analysis
How our understanding of calculus has evolved over more than three centuries, how this has shaped the way it is taught in the classroom, and why calculus pedagogy needs to changeCalculus Reordered tak
Meant for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics, this lively introduction to measure theory and Lebesgue integration is rooted in and motivated by the historical questions that led to its development. The author stresses the original purpose of the definitions and theorems and highlights some of the difficulties that were encountered as these ideas were refined. The story begins with Riemann's definition of the integral, a definition created so that he could understand how broadly one could define a function and yet have it be integrable. The reader then follows the efforts of many mathematicians who wrestled with the difficulties inherent in the Riemann integral, leading to the work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries of Jordan, Borel, and Lebesgue, who finally broke with Riemann's definition. Ushering in a new way of understanding integration, they opened the door to fresh and productive approaches to many of the previously intractable problems of analysis
This book focuses on a single issue: how to factor a large integer or prove its prime. Provides a survey of the heritage and an introduction to the current research in the field, with a strong emphasi
Published by the U. of Chicago Press in association with the Mathematical Association of America, this is a reprint of Toeplitz' 1963 classic work (that is, the translation from the German edition int
This survey focuses on the main trends in the field of calculus education. Despite their variety, the findings reveal a cornerstone issue that is strongly linked to the formalism of calculus concepts
