R.V. Gamkrelidze - Böcker

Algebraic and Differential Topology presents in a clear, concise, and detailed manner the fundamentals of homology theory. It first defines the concept of a complex and its Betti groups, then discusses the topolgoical invariance of a Betti group. The book next presents various applications of homology theory, such as mapping of polyhedrons onto other polyhedrons as well as onto themselves. The third volume in L.S. Pontryagin's Selected Works, this book provides as many insights into algebraic topology for today's mathematician as it did when the author was making his initial endeavors into this field.

Among the finest achievements in modern mathematics are two of L.S. Pontryagin's most notable contributions: Pontryagin duality and his general theory of characters of a locally compact commutative group. This book, the first in a four-volume set, contains the most important papers of this eminent mathematician, those which have influenced many generations of mathematicians worldwide. They chronicle the development of his work in many areas, from his early efforts in homology groups, duality theorems, and dimension theory to his later achievements in homotopic topology and optimal control theory.

Offering the insights of L.S. Pontryagin, one of the foremost thinkers in modern mathematics, the second volume in this four-volume set examines the nature and processes that make up topological groups. Already hailed as the leading work in this subject for its abundance of examples and its thorough explanations, the text is arranged so that readers can follow the material either sequentially or schematically. Stand-alone chapters cover such topics as topological division rings, linear representations of compact topological groups, and the concept of a lie group.

Graphs drawn on two-dimensional surfaces have always attracted researchers by their beauty and by the variety of difficult questions to which they give rise. The theory of such embedded graphs, which long seemed rather isolated, has witnessed the appearance of entirely unexpected new applications in recent decades, ranging from Galois theory to quantum gravity models, and has become a kind of a focus of a vast field of research. The book provides an accessible introduction to this new domain, including such topics as coverings of Riemann surfaces, the Galois group action on embedded graphs (Grothendieck's theory of "dessins d'enfants"), the matrix integral method, moduli spaces of curves, the topology of meromorphic functions, and combinatorial aspects of Vassiliev's knot invariants and, in an appendix by Don Zagier, the use of finite group representation theory. The presentation is concrete throughout, with numerous figures, examples (including computer calculations) and exercises, and should appeal to both graduate students and researchers.

Homology 3-sphere is a closed 3-dimensional manifold whose homology equals that of the 3-sphere. These objects may look rather special but they have played an outstanding role in geometric topology for the past fifty years. The book gives a systematic exposition of diverse ideas and methods in the area, from algebraic topology of manifolds to invariants arising from quantum field theories. The main topics covered are constructions and classification of homology 3-spheres, Rokhlin invariant, Casson invariant and its extensions, including invariants of Walker and Lescop, Herald and Lin invariants of knots, and equivariant Casson invariants, Floer homology and gauge-theoretical invariants of homology cobordism. Many of the topics covered in the book appear in monograph form for the first time. The book gives a rather broad overview of ideas and methods and provides a comprehensive bibliography. It will be appealing to both graduate students and researchers in mathematics and theoretical physics.

Since the early work of Gauss and Riemann, differential geometry has grown into a vast network of ideas and approaches, encompassing local considerations such as differential invariants and jets as well as global ideas, such as Morse theory and characteristic classes.

Graphs drawn on two-dimensional surfaces have always attracted researchers by their beauty and by the variety of difficult questions to which they give rise. The theory of such embedded graphs, which long seemed rather isolated, has witnessed the appearance of entirely unexpected new applications in recent decades, ranging from Galois theory to quantum gravity models, and has become a kind of a focus of a vast field of research. The book provides an accessible introduction to this new domain, including such topics as coverings of Riemann surfaces, the Galois group action on embedded graphs (Grothendieck's theory of "dessins d'enfants"), the matrix integral method, moduli spaces of curves, the topology of meromorphic functions, and combinatorial aspects of Vassiliev's knot invariants and, in an appendix by Don Zagier, the use of finite group representation theory. The presentation is concrete throughout, with numerous figures, examples (including computer calculations) and exercises, and should appeal to both graduate students and researchers.

Homology 3-sphere is a closed 3-dimensional manifold whose homology equals that of the 3-sphere. These objects may look rather special but they have played an outstanding role in geometric topology for the past fifty years. The book gives a systematic exposition of diverse ideas and methods in the area, from algebraic topology of manifolds to invariants arising from quantum field theories. The main topics covered are constructions and classification of homology 3-spheres, Rokhlin invariant, Casson invariant and its extensions, including invariants of Walker and Lescop, Herald and Lin invariants of knots, and equivariant Casson invariants, Floer homology and gauge-theoretical invariants of homology cobordism. Many of the topics covered in the book appear in monograph form for the first time. The book gives a rather broad overview of ideas and methods and provides a comprehensive bibliography. It will be appealing to both graduate students and researchers in mathematics and theoretical physics.

Since the early work of Gauss and Riemann, differential geometry has grown into a vast network of ideas and approaches, encompassing local considerations such as differential invariants and jets as well as global ideas, such as Morse theory and characteristic classes. In this volume of the Encyclopaedia, the authors give a tour of the principal areas and methods of modern differential geomerty. The book is structured so that the reader may choose parts of the text to read and still take away a completed picture of some area of differential geometry. Beginning at the introductory level with curves in Euclidian space, the sections become more challenging, arriving finally at the advanced topics which form the greatest part of the book: transformation groups, the geometry of differential equations, geometric structures, the equivalence problem, the geometry of elliptic operators. Several of the topics are approaches which are now enjoying a resurgence, e.g. G-structures and contact geometry. As an overview of the major current methods of differential geometry, EMS 28 is a map of these different ideas which explains the interesting points at every stop. The authors' intention is that the reader should gain a new understanding of geometry from the process of reading this survey.