The subject of Clifford (geometric) algebras offers a unified algebraic framework for the direct expression of the geometric concepts in algebra, geometry, and physics. This bird's-eye view of the discipline is presented by six of the world's leading experts in the field; it features an introductory chapter on Clifford algebras, followed by extensive explorations of their applications to physics, computer science, and differential geometry. The book is ideal for graduate students in mathematics, physics, and computer science; it is appropriate both for newcomers who have little prior knowledge of the field and professionals who wish to keep abreast of the latest applications.
This volume is an outgrowth of the 1995 Summer School on Theoretical Physics of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), held in Banff, Alberta, in the Canadian Rockies, from July 30 to August 12,1995. The chapters, based on lectures given at the School, are designed to be tutorial in nature, and many include exercises to assist the learning process. Most lecturers gave three or four fifty-minute lectures aimed at relative novices in the field. More emphasis is therefore placed on pedagogy and establishing comprehension than on erudition and superior scholarship. Of course, new and exciting results are presented in applications of Clifford algebras, but in a coherent and user-friendly way to the nonspecialist. The subject area of the volume is Clifford algebra and its applications. Through the geometric language of the Clifford-algebra approach, many concepts in physics are clarified, united, and extended in new and sometimes surprising directions. In particular, the approach eliminates the formal gaps that traditionally separate clas sical, quantum, and relativistic physics. It thereby makes the study of physics more efficient and the research more penetrating, and it suggests resolutions to a major physics problem of the twentieth century, namely how to unite quantum theory and gravity. The term "geometric algebra" was used by Clifford himself, and David Hestenes has suggested its use in order to emphasize its wide applicability, and b& cause the developments by Clifford were themselves based heavily on previous work by Grassmann, Hamilton, Rodrigues, Gauss, and others.
This volume offers a comprehensive approach to the theoretical, applied and symbolic computational aspects of the subject. Excellent for self-study, leading experts in the field have written on the of topics mentioned above, using an easy approach with efficient geometric language for non-specialists.
This is the second edition of a popular work offering a unique introduction to Clifford algebras and spinors. The beginning chapters could be read by undergraduates; vectors, complex numbers and quaternions are introduced with an eye on Clifford algebras. The next chapters will also interest physicists, and include treatments of the quantum mechanics of the electron, electromagnetism and special relativity with a flavour of Clifford algebras. This edition has three new chapters, including material on conformal invariance and a history of Clifford algebras.
This monograph-like anthology introduces the concepts and framework of Clifford algebra. It provides a rich source of examples of how to work with this formalism. Clifford or geometric algebra shows strong unifying aspects and turned out in the 1960s to be a most adequate formalism for describing different geometry-related algebraic systems as specializations of one "mother algebra" in various subfields of physics and engineering. Recent work shows that Clifford algebra provides a universal and powerful algebraic framework for an elegant and coherent representation of various problems occurring in computer science, signal processing, neural computing, image processing, pattern recognition, computer vision, and robotics.
William Kingdon Clifford published the paper defining his "geometric algebras" in 1878, the year before his death. Clifford algebra is a generalisation to n-dimensional space of quaternions, which Hamilton used to represent scalars and vectors in real three-space: it is also a development of Grassmann's algebra, incorporating in the fundamental relations inner products defined in terms of the metric of the space. It is a strange fact that the Gibbs Heaviside vector techniques came to dominate in scientific and technical literature, while quaternions and Clifford algebras, the true associative algebras of inner-product spaces, were regarded for nearly a century simply as interesting mathematical curiosities. During this period, Pauli, Dirac and Majorana used the algebras which bear their names to describe properties of elementary particles, their spin in particular. It seems likely that none of these eminent mathematical physicists realised that they were using Clifford algebras. A few research workers such as Fueter realised the power of this algebraic scheme, but the subject only began to be appreciated more widely after the publication of Chevalley's book, 'The Algebraic Theory of Spinors' in 1954, and of Marcel Riesz' Maryland Lectures in 1959. Some of the contributors to this volume, Georges Deschamps, Erik Folke Bolinder, Albert Crumeyrolle and David Hestenes were working in this field around that time, and in their turn have persuaded others of the importance of the subject.
Geometric algebra is a powerful mathematical language with applications across a range of subjects in physics and engineering. This book is a complete guide to the current state of the subject with early chapters providing a self-contained introduction to geometric algebra. Topics covered include new techniques for handling rotations in arbitrary dimensions, and the links between rotations, bivectors and the structure of the Lie groups. Following chapters extend the concept of a complex analytic function theory to arbitrary dimensions, with applications in quantum theory and electromagnetism. Later chapters cover advanced topics such as non-Euclidean geometry, quantum entanglement, and gauge theories. Applications such as black holes and cosmic strings are also explored. It can be used as a graduate text for courses on the physical applications of geometric algebra and is also suitable for researchers working in the fields of relativity and quantum theory.
The application of geometric algebra to the engineering sciences is a young, active subject of research. The promise of this field is that the mathematical structure of geometric algebra together with its descriptive power will result in intuitive and more robust algorithms. This book examines all aspects essential for a successful application of geometric algebra: the theoretical foundations, the representation of geometric constraints, and the numerical estimation from uncertain data. Formally, the book consists of two parts: theoretical foundations and applications. The first part includes chapters on random variables in geometric algebra, linear estimation methods that incorporate the uncertainty of algebraic elements, and the representation of geometry in Euclidean, projective, conformal and conic space. The second part is dedicated to applications of geometric algebra, which include uncertain geometry and transformations, a generalized camera model, and pose estimation. Graduate students, scientists, researchers and practitioners will benefit from this book. The examples given in the text are mostly recent research results, so practitioners can see how to apply geometric algebra to real tasks, while researchers note starting points for future investigations. Students will profit from the detailed introduction to geometric algebra, while the text is supported by the author's visualization software, CLUCalc, freely available online, and a website that includes downloadable exercises, slides and tutorials.
This is an exploratory collection of notes containing worked examples of a number of applications of Geometric Algebra (GA), also known as Clifford Algebra. This writing is focused on undergraduate level physics concepts, with a target audience of somebody with an undergraduate engineering background (i.e. me at the time of writing.) These notes are more journal than book. You'll find lots of duplication, since I reworked some topics from scratch a number of times. In many places I was attempting to learn both the basic physics concepts as well as playing with how to express many of those concepts using GA formalisms. The page count proves that I did a very poor job of weeding out all the duplication. These notes are (dis)organized into the following chapters * Basics and Geometry. This chapter covers a hodge-podge collection of topics, including GA forms for traditional vector identities, Quaterions, Cauchy equations, Legendre polynomials, wedge product representation of a plane, bivector and trivector geometry, torque and more. A couple attempts at producing an introduction to GA concepts are included (none of which I was ever happy with.) * Projection. Here the concept of reciprocal frame vectors, using GA and traditional matrix formalisms is developed. Projection, rejection and Moore-Penrose (generalized inverse) operations are discussed. * Rotation. GA Rotors, Euler angles, spherical coordinates, blade exponentials, rotation generators, and infinitesimal rotations are all examined from a GA point of view. * Calculus. Here GA equivalents for a number of vector calculus relations are developed, spherical and hyperspherical volume parameterizations are derived, some questions about the structure of divergence and curl are examined, and tangent planes and normals in 3 and 4 dimensions are examined. Wrapping up this chapter is a complete GA formulation of the general Stokes theorem for curvilinear coordinates in Euclidean or non-Euclidean spaces is developed. * General Physics. This chapter introduces a bivector form of angular momentum (instead of a cross product), examines the components of radial velocity and acceleration, kinetic energy, symplectic structure, Newton's method, and a center of mass problem for a toroidal segment. * Relativity. This is a fairly incoherent chapter, including an attempt to develop the Lorentz transformation by requiring wave equation invariance, Lorentz transformation of the four-vector (STA) gradient, and a look at the relativistic doppler equation. * Electrodynamics. The GA formulation of Maxwell's equation (singular in GA) is developed here. Various basic topics of electrodynamics are examined using the GA toolbox, including the Biot-Savart law, the covariant form for Maxwell's equation (Space Time Algebra, or STA), four vectors and potentials, gauge invariance, TEM waves, and some Lienard-Wiechert problems. * Lorentz Force. Here the GA form of the Lorentz force equation and its relation to the usual vectorial representation is explored. This includes some application of boosts to the force equation to examine how it transforms under observe dependent conditions. * Electrodynamic stress energy. This chapter explores concepts of electrodynamic energy and momentum density and the GA representation of the Poynting vector and the stress-energy tensors. * Quantum Mechanics. This chapter includes a look at the Dirac Lagrangian, and how this can be cast into GA form. Properties of the Pauli and Dirac bases are explored, and how various matrix operations map onto their GA equivalents. A bivector form for the angular momentum operator is examined. A multivector form for the first few spherical harmonic eigenfunctions is developed. A multivector factorization of the three and four dimensional Laplacian and the angular momentum operators are derived. * Fourier treatments. Solutions to various PDE equations are attempted using Fourier series and transforms. Much of this chapter was exploring Fourier solutions to the GA form of Maxwell's equation, but a few other non-geometric algebra Fourier problems were also tackled.
Every advanced undergraduate and graduate student of physics must master the concepts of vectors and vector analysis. Yet most books cover this topic by merely repeating the introductory-level treatment based on a limited algebraic or analytic view of the subject. Geometrical Vectors introduces a more sophisticated approach, which not only brings together many loose ends of the traditional treatment, but also leads directly into the practical use of vectors in general curvilinear coordinates by carefully separating those relationships which are topologically invariant from those which are not. Based on the essentially geometric nature of the subject, this approach builds consistently on students' prior knowledge and geometrical intuition. Written in an informal and personal style, Geometrical Vectors provides a handy guide for any student of vector analysis. Clear, carefully constructed line drawings illustrate key points in the text, and problem sets as well as physical examples are provided.
