This bold and refreshing approach to Lie algebras assumes only modest prerequisites (linear algebra up to the Jordan canonical form and a basic familiarity with groups and rings), yet it reaches a major result in representation theory: the highest-weight classification of irreducible modules of the general linear Lie algebra. The author's exposition is focused on this goal rather than aiming at the widest generality and emphasis is placed on explicit calculations with bases and matrices. The book begins with a motivating chapter explaining the context and relevance of Lie algebras and their representations and concludes with a guide to further reading. Numerous examples and exercises with full solutions are included. Based on the author's own introductory course on Lie algebras, this book has been thoroughly road-tested by advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students and it is also suited to individual readers wanting an introduction to this important area of mathematics.
This text offers an excellent introduction to the mathematical theory of wavelets for senior undergraduate students. Despite the fact that this theory is intrinsically advanced, the author's elementary approach makes it accessible at the undergraduate level. Beginning with thorough accounts of inner product spaces and Hilbert spaces, the book then shifts its focus to wavelets specifically, starting with the Haar wavelet, broadening to wavelets in general, and culminating in the construction of the Daubechies wavelets. All of this is done using only elementary methods, bypassing the use of the Fourier integral transform. Arguments using the Fourier transform are introduced in the final chapter, and this less elementary approach is used to outline a second and quite different construction of the Daubechies wavelets. The main text of the book is supplemented by more than 200 exercises ranging in difficulty and complexity.
A classical theorem of Jordan states that every finite transitive permutation group contains a derangement. This existence result has interesting and unexpected applications in many areas of mathematics, including graph theory, number theory and topology. Various generalisations have been studied in more recent years, with a particular focus on the existence of derangements with special properties. Written for academic researchers and postgraduate students working in related areas of algebra, this introduction to the finite classical groups features a comprehensive account of the conjugacy and geometry of elements of prime order. The development is tailored towards the study of derangements in finite primitive classical groups; the basic problem is to determine when such a group G contains a derangement of prime order r, for each prime divisor r of the degree of G. This involves a detailed analysis of the conjugacy classes and subgroup structure of the finite classical groups.
The Mahler measure is a fascinating notion and an exciting topic in contemporary mathematics, interconnecting with subjects as diverse as number theory, analysis, arithmetic geometry, special functions and random walks. This friendly and concise introduction to the Mahler measure is a valuable resource for both graduate courses and self-study. It provides the reader with the necessary background material, before presenting the recent achievements and the remaining challenges in the field. The first part introduces the univariate Mahler measure and addresses Lehmer's question, and then discusses techniques of reducing multivariate measures to hypergeometric functions. The second part touches on the novelties of the subject, especially the relation with elliptic curves, modular forms and special values of L-functions. Finally, the Appendix presents the modern definition of motivic cohomology and regulator maps, as well as Deligne–Beilinson cohomology. The text includes many exercises to
There are a number of intriguing connections between Painlevé equations and orthogonal polynomials, and this book is one of the first to provide an introduction to these. Researchers in integrable systems and non-linear equations will find the many explicit examples where Painlevé equations appear in mathematical analysis very useful. Those interested in the asymptotic behavior of orthogonal polynomials will also find the description of Painlevé transcendants and their use for local analysis near certain critical points helpful to their work. Rational solutions and special function solutions of Painlevé equations are worked out in detail, with a survey of recent results and an outline of their close relationship with orthogonal polynomials. Exercises throughout the book help the reader to get to grips with the material. The author is a leading authority on orthogonal polynomials, giving this work a unique perspective on Painlevé equations.
Enumerative combinatorics, in its algebraic and analytic forms, is vital to many areas of mathematics, from model theory to statistical mechanics. This book, which stems from many years' experience of teaching, invites students into the subject and prepares them for more advanced texts. It is suitable as a class text or for individual study. The author provides proofs for many of the theorems to show the range of techniques available, and uses examples to link enumerative combinatorics to other areas of study. The main section of the book introduces the key tools of the subject (generating functions and recurrence relations), which are then used to study the most important combinatorial objects, namely subsets, partitions, and permutations of a set. Later chapters deal with more specialised topics, including permanents, SDRs, group actions and the Redfield–Pólya theory of cycle indices, Möbius inversion, the Tutte polynomial, and species.
This book on the foundations of Euclidean geometry aims to present the subject from the point of view of present day mathematics, taking advantage of all the developments since the appearance of Hilbert's classic work. Here real affine space is characterised by a small number of axioms involving points and line segments making the treatment self-contained and thorough, many results being established under weaker hypotheses than usual. The treatment should be totally accessible for final year undergraduates and graduate students, and can also serve as an introduction to other areas of mathematics such as matroids and antimatroids, combinatorial convexity, the theory of polytopes, projective geometry and functional analysis.
This book provides a concise and accessible exposition of a wide range of topics in geometric approaches to differential equations. The aim of the book is to present an overview of this developing subject and a brief introduction to a number of related topics, including twistor theory, vortex filament dynamics, calculus of variations, exterior differential systems and Bäcklund transformations. Written by leading experts, this book is an ideal starting point for graduate students embarking on research. It will also be of use to researchers and anybody wishing to learn more about this burgeoning field of mathematical endeavour.
This book provides an easy introduction to the theory of differentiable manifolds. The authors then show how the theory can be used to develop, simply but rigorously, the theory of Lanrangian mechanics directly from Newton's laws. Unnecessary abstraction has been avoided to produce an account suitable for students in mathematics or physics who have taken courses in advanced calculus.
The mathematical theory underlying many sporting activities is of considerable interest to both applied mathematicians and sporting enthusiasts alike. Here Professor de Mestre presents a rigorous account of the techniques applied to the motion of projectiles. This equips the reader for the final section of the book in which an enlightening collection of sporting applications is considered, ranging from soccer to table-tennis and high-jump to frisbees. The presentation should be accessible to most undergraduate science students and provides an ideal setting for the development of mathematical modelling techniques.
Integration has a long history: its roots can be traced as far back as the ancient Greeks. The first genuinely rigorous definition of an integral was that given by Riemann, and further (more general, and so more useful) definitions have since been given by Lebesgue, Denjoy, Perron, Kurzweil and Henstock, and this culminated in the work of McShane. This textbook provides an introduction to this theory, and it presents a unified yet elementary approach that is suitable for beginning graduate and final year undergraduate students.
Designed for one-semester courses at the senior undergraduate level, this 2003 book will appeal to mathematics undergraduates, to mathematics teachers, and to others who need to learn some mathematical analysis for use in other areas such as engineering, physics, biology or finance. Topics such as completeness and compactness are approached initially through convergence of sequences in metric space, and the emphasis remains on this approach. However, the alternative topological approach is described in a separate chapter. This gives the book more flexibility, making it especially useful as an introduction to more advanced areas such as functional analysis. Nominal divisions of pure and applied mathematics have been merged, leaving enough for students of either inclination to have a feeling for what further developments might look like. Applications have been included from such fields as differential and integral equations, systems of linear algebraic equations, approximation theory
This text is a basic course in functional analysis for senior undergraduate and beginning postgraduate students. It aims at providing some insight into basic abstract analysis which is now the contextual language of much modern mathematics. Although it is assumed that the student will have familiarity with elementary real and complex analysis and linear algebra and have studied a course in the analysis of metric spaces, a knowledge of integration theory or general topology is not required. The theme of this text concerns structural properties of normed linear spaces in general, especially associated with dual spaces and continuous linear operators on normed linear spaces. But the implications of the general theory are illustrated with a great variety of example spaces.
The Petersen graph occupies an important position in the development of several areas of modern graph theory because it often appears as a counter-example to important conjectures. In this account, the authors examine those areas, using the prominent role of the Petersen graph as a unifying feature. Topics covered include: vertex and edge colourability (including snarks), factors, flows, projective geometry, cages, hypohamiltonian graphs, and 'symmetry' properties such as distance transitivity. The final chapter contains a pot-pourri of other topics in which the Petersen graph has played its part. Undergraduate students will be able to profit from reading this book as the prerequisites are few; thus it could be used for a second course in graph theory. On the other hand, the authors have also included a number of unsolved problems as well as topics of recent study. Thus it will also be useful as a reference for graph theorists.
Designed for one-semester courses at the senior undergraduate level, this 2003 book will appeal to mathematics undergraduates, to mathematics teachers, and to others who need to learn some mathematical analysis for use in other areas such as engineering, physics, biology or finance. Topics such as completeness and compactness are approached initially through convergence of sequences in metric space, and the emphasis remains on this approach. However, the alternative topological approach is described in a separate chapter. This gives the book more flexibility, making it especially useful as an introduction to more advanced areas such as functional analysis. Nominal divisions of pure and applied mathematics have been merged, leaving enough for students of either inclination to have a feeling for what further developments might look like. Applications have been included from such fields as differential and integral equations, systems of linear algebraic equations, approximation theory
This book brings together a selection of the best lectures from many graduate workshops held at the Australian National Institute for Theoretical Physics in Adelaide. The lectures presented here describe subjects currently of great interest, generally at the interface between mathematics and physics, and also where suitable expositions did not previously exist at a level suitable for graduate students. Topics covered include quantum groups, the operator algebra approach to the integer quantum Hall effect, solvable lattice models and Hecke algebras, Yangevins, equivariant cohomology and symplectic geometry, and von Neumann invariants of covering spaces.
This introduction to optimization emphasizes the need for both a pure and an applied mathematical point of view. Beginning with a chapter on linear algebra and Euclidean geometry, the author then applies this theory with an introduction to linear programming. There follows a discussion of convex analysis, which finds application in non-linear programming. The book ends with an extensive commentary to the exercises that are given at the end of each chapter. The author's straightforward, geometrical approach makes this an attractive textbook for undergraduate students of mathematics, engineering, operations research and economics.
This volume contains original research articles by many of the world's leading researchers in algebraic and Lie groups. Its inclination is algebraic and geometric, although analytical aspects are included. The central theme reflects the interests of R. W. Richardson, viz. connections between representation theory and the structure and geometry of algebraic groups. Particular topics addressed include Kazhdan-Lusztig theory, quantum groups, spherical varieties, symmetric varieties, cohomology of varieties, purity, Schubert geometry, invariant theory and symmetry breaking. The theory of canonical bases and their geometric context is a theme of several of the contributions as is the orbit theory of algebraic group actions on affine varieties. All workers on algebraic and Lie groups will find that this book contains a wealth of interesting material.
This is an introduction to the analysis of metric and normed linear spaces for undergraduate students in mathematics. Assuming a basic knowledge of real analysis and linear algebra, the student is exposed to the axiomatic method in analysis and is shown its power in exploiting the structure of fundamental analysis, which underlies a variety of applications. An example is the link between normed linear spaces and linear algebra; finite dimensional spaces are discussed early. The treatment progresses from the concrete to the abstract: thus metric spaces are studied in some detail before general topology is begun, though topological properties of metric spaces are explored in the book. Graded exercises are provided at the end of each section; in each set the earlier exercises are designed to assist in the detection of the structural properties in concrete examples while the later ones are more conceptually sophisticated.
