Jozsef Beck - Böcker

This book is an authoritative description of the various approaches to and methods in the theory of irregularities of distribution. The subject is primarily concerned with number theory, but also borders on combinatorics and probability theory. The work is in three parts. The first is concerned with the classical problem, complemented where appropriate with more recent results. In the second part, the authors study generalizations of the classical problem, pioneered by Schmidt. Here, they include chapters on the integral equation method of Schmidt and the more recent Fourier transform technique. The final part is devoted to Roth's '1/4-theorem'.

Mathematics has been called the science of order. The subject is remarkably good for generalizing specific cases to create abstract theories. However, mathematics has little to say when faced with highly complex systems, where disorder reigns. This disorder can be found in pure mathematical arenas, such as the distribution of primes, the 3n 1 conjecture, and class field theory. The purpose of this book is to provide examples - and rigorous proofs - of the complexity law: discrete systems are either simple or they exhibit advanced pseudorandomness; a priori probabilities often exist even when there is no intrinsic symmetry. Part of the difficulty in achieving this purpose is in trying to clarify these vague statements. The examples turn out to be fascinating instances of deep or mysterious results in number theory and combinatorics. This book considers randomness and complexity. The traditional approach to complexity - computational complexity theory - is to study very general complexity classes, such as P, NP and PSPACE. What Beck does is very different: he studies interesting concrete systems, which can give new insights into the mystery of complexity. The book is divided into three parts. Part A is mostly an essay on the big picture. Part B is partly new results and partly a survey of real game theory. Part C contains new results about graph games, supporting the main conjecture. To make it accessible to a wide audience, the book is mostly self-contained.

This book is summarizing the results of the workshop "Uniform Distribution and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods" of the RICAM Special Semester on "Applications of Algebra and Number Theory" in October 2013.The survey articles in this book focus on number theoretic point constructions, uniform distribution theory, and quasi-Monte Carlo methods. As deterministic versions of the Monte Carlo method, quasi-Monte Carlo rules enjoy increasing popularity, with many fruitful applications in mathematical practice, as for example in finance, computer graphics, and biology. The goal of this book is to give an overview of recent developments in uniform distribution theory, quasi-Monte Carlo methods, and their applications, presented by leading experts in these vivid fields of research.

This book gives a comprehensive treatment of random phenomena and distribution results in diophantine approximation, with a particular emphasis on quadratic irrationals. It covers classical material on the subject as well as many new results developed by the author over the past decade. A range of ideas from other areas of mathematics are brought to bear with surprising connections to topics such as formulae for class numbers, special values of L-functions, and Dedekind sums. Care is taken to elaborate difficult proofs by motivating major steps and accompanying them with background explanations, enabling the reader to learn the theory and relevant techniques.Written by one of the acknowledged experts in the field, Probabilistic Diophantine Approximation is presented in a clear and informal style with sufficient detail to appeal to both advanced students and researchers in number theory.

This book gives a comprehensive treatment of random phenomena and distribution results in diophantine approximation, with a particular emphasis on quadratic irrationals. It covers classical material on the subject as well as many new results developed by the author over the past decade. A range of ideas from other areas of mathematics are brought to bear with surprising connections to topics such as formulae for class numbers, special values of L-functions, and Dedekind sums. Care is taken to elaborate difficult proofs by motivating major steps and accompanying them with background explanations, enabling the reader to learn the theory and relevant techniques.Written by one of the acknowledged experts in the field, Probabilistic Diophantine Approximation is presented in a clear and informal style with sufficient detail to appeal to both advanced students and researchers in number theory.

We know very little about the time-evolution of many-particle dynamical systems, the subject of our book. Even the 3-body problem has no explicit solution (we cannot solve the corresponding system of differential equations, and computer simulation indicates hopelessly chaotic behaviour). For example, what can we say about the typical time evolution of a large system starting from a stage far from equilibrium? What happens in a realistic time scale? The reader's first reaction is probably: What about the famous Second Law (of thermodynamics)?Unfortunately, there are plenty of notorious mathematical problems surrounding the Second Law. (1) How to rigorously define entropy? How to convert the well known intuitions (like "disorder" and "energy spreading") into precise mathematical definitions? (2) How to express the Second Law in forms of a rigorous mathematical theorem? (3) The Second Law is a "soft" qualitative statement about entropy increase, but does not say anything about the necessary time to reach equilibrium.The object of this book is to answer questions (1)-(2)-(3). We rigorously prove a Time-Quantitative Second Law that works on a realistic time scale. As a by product, we clarify the Loschmidt-paradox and the related reversibility/irreversibility paradox.

The subject of this monograph is to describe orbits of slowly chaotic motion. The study of geodesic flow on the unit torus is motivated by the irrational rotation sequence, where the most outstanding result is the Kronecker-Weyl equidistribution theorem and its time-quantitative enhancements, including superuniformity. Another important result is the Khinchin density theorem on superdensity, a best possible form of time-quantitative density. The purpose of this monograph is to extend these classical time-quantitative results to some non-integrable flat dynamical systems.The theory of dynamical systems is on the most part about the qualitative behavior of typical orbits and not about individual orbits. Thus, our study deviates from, and indeed is in complete contrast to, what is considered the mainstream research in dynamical systems. We establish non-trivial results concerning explicit individual orbits and describe their long-term behavior in a precise time-quantitative way. Our non-ergodic approach gives rise to a few new methods. These are based on a combination of ideas in combinatorics, number theory, geometry and linear algebra.Approximately half of this monograph is devoted to a time-quantitative study of two concrete simple non-integrable flat dynamical systems. The first concerns billiard in the L-shape region which is equivalent to geodesic flow on the L-surface. The second concerns geodesic flow on the surface of the unit cube. In each, we give a complete description of time-quantitative equidistribution for every geodesic with a quadratic irrational slope.

It is the first book about a new aspect of Uniform distribution, called Strong Uniformity. Besides developing the theory of Strong Uniformity, the book also includes novel applications in the underdeveloped field of Large Dynamical Systems.