Serge Tabachnikov – författare

Mathematical billiards describe the motion of a mass point in a domain with elastic reflections off the boundary or, equivalently, the behavior of rays of light in a domain with ideally reflecting boundary. From the point of view of differential geometry, the billiard flow is the geodesic flow on a manifold with boundary. This book is devoted to billiards in their relation with differential geometry, classical mechanics, and geometrical optics. Topics covered include variational principles of billiard motion, symplectic geometry of rays of light and integral geometry, existence and nonexistence of caustics, optical properties of conics and quadrics and completely integrable billiards, periodic billiard trajectories, polygonal billiards, mechanisms of chaos in billiard dynamics, and the lesser-known subject of dual (or outer) billiards.The book is based on an advanced undergraduate topics course. Minimum prerequisites are the standard material covered in the first two years of college mathematics (the entire calculus sequence, linear algebra). However, readers should show some mathematical maturity and rely on their mathematical common sense. A unique feature of the book is the coverage of many diverse topics related to billiards, for example, evolutes and involutes of plane curves, the four-vertex theorem, a mathematical theory of rainbows, distribution of first digits in various sequences, Morse theory, the Poincare recurrence theorem, Hilbert's fourth problem, Poncelet porism, and many others. There are approximately 100 illustrations. The book is suitable for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers interested in ergodic theory and geometry.

The book consists of thirty lectures on diverse topics, covering much of the mathematical landscape rather than focusing on one area. The reader will learn numerous results that often belong to neither the standard undergraduate nor graduate curriculum and will discover connections between classical and contemporary ideas in algebra, combinatorics, geometry, and topology. The reader's effort will be rewarded in seeing the harmony of each subject. The common thread in the selected subjects is their illustration of the unity and beauty of mathematics. Most lectures contain exercises, and solutions or answers are given to selected exercises. A special feature of the book is an abundance of drawings (more than four hundred), artwork by an accomplished artist, and about a hundred portraits of mathematicians. Almost every lecture contains surprises for even the seasoned researcher.

Das Buch enthält dreißig Vorlesungen über unterschiedliche Themen, die einen Großteil der mathematischen Landschaft abdecken. Klar und verständlich wird der Leser auf zahlreiche Resultate geführt, die oft weder in der mathematischen Grundausbildung noch im akademischen Curriculum vorkommen. So kann der Leser Zusammenhänge zwischen klassischen und modernen Ideen aus der Algebra, der Kombinatorik, der Geometrie und der Topologie entdecken. Die Bemühungen des Lesers werden durch die Einsicht in die Harmonie jedes Themas belohnt. Die ausgewählten Themen verbindet, dass sie die Einheit und die Schönheit der Mathematik veranschaulichen. Die meisten Vorlesungen enthalten Übungen, ausgewählte Übungen werden am Ende des Buches gelöst oder beantwortet. Zu den Besonderheiten des Buches zählen die Fülle von Zeichnungen (über 400), Illustrationen eines versierten Künstlers, und die rund 100~Porträts von Mathematikern. Fast jede Vorlesung hält auch für den erfahrenen Forscher Überraschungen bereit.