Contains five short articles about Roger Lyndon and his contributions to mathematics, as well as twenty-seven invited research papers in combinatorial group theory and closely related areas. Several of the articles featured in this work fall into subfields of combinatorial group theory, areas in which much of the initial work was done by Lyndon.
"It is a pleasure to turn to Wussing's book, a sound presentation of history," declared the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. The author, Director of the Institute for the History of Medicine and Science at Leipzig University, traces the axiomatic formulation of the abstract notion of group. 1984 edition.
This book shows new directions in group theory motivated by computer science. It reflects the transition from geometric group theory to group theory of the 21st century that has strong connections to computer science. Now that geometric group theory is drifting further and further away from group theory to geometry, it is natural to look for new tools and new directions in group theory which are present.
This volume celebrates the major impact on modern group theory made by Philip Hall. The survey articles were commissioned to provide reasonably self-contained, up-to-date and forward-looking accounts of finite and infinite group theory. Mathematicians working on group theory and ring theory will find this volume interesting and useful, and the material is accessible to students specializing in algebra. This book was prepared for Philip Hall's 80th birthday, but is now published after his death as a tribute to his genius. FROM THE PREFACE: This book was to have been an eightieth birthday present for Philip Hall. In the summer of 1980 the Council of the London Mathematical Society asked us to edit a volume to mark Hall's 80th birthday on the eleventh of April 1984. We decided to produce a book in two parts: the first to consist of commissioned survey articles and the second of submitted research papers. Because we intended to invite research articles by advertisement, we had to tell Hall something of our plans; this we did at a pub lunch outside Cambridge in May 1981. At the same time we asked him if he would agree to take part in a birthday celebration in his honour which had been proposed by the Society. Characteristically he said that he would prefer no public festivity; but he liked the idea of a book, especially the surveys. Our idea was that each survey would give a reasonably self-contained, up-to-date and forward-looking account of an area in which Hall had made important contributions. In view of Hall's considerable impact on modern group theory, we hoped that the essays would together form a fairly coherent picture of the subject. So as to avoid too much overlap, we suggested to each author the area we should like him to cover, but only in broad terms; the choice of material within the suggested area was left entirely to him. It was inevitable, perhaps, that gaps would remain. When Hall died on 30th December 1982, we felt that the second half of the planned book was no longer appropriate, but that the essays should still be published. We offer them here not as a memorial volume, since they were largely written while Philip Hall was alive and well, but as a tribute to his genius.
One of the pervasive phenomena in the history of science is the development of independent disciplines from the solution or attempted solutions of problems in other areas of science. In the Twentieth Century, the creation of specialties witqin the sciences has accelerated to the point where a large number of scientists in any major branch of science cannot understand the work of a colleague in another subdiscipline of his own science. Despite this fragmentation, the development of techniques or solutions of problems in one area very often contribute fundamentally to solutions of problems in a seemingly unrelated field. Therefore, an examination of this phenomenon of the formation of independent disciplines within the sciences would contrib ute to the understanding of their evolution in modern times. We believe that in this context the history of combinatorial group theory in the late Nineteenth Century and the Twentieth Century can be used effectively as a case study. It is a reasonably well-defined independent specialty, and yet it is closely related to other mathematical disciplines. The fact that combinatorial group theory has, so far, not been influenced by the practical needs of science and technology makes it possible for us to use combinatorial group theory to exhibit the role of the intellectual aspects of the development of mathematics in a clearcut manner. There are other features of combinatorial group theory which appear to make it a reasona ble choice as the object of a historical study.
This volume consists of contributions by speakers at the AMS Special Session on Combinatorial and Statistical Group Theory held at New York University. Readers will find a variety of contributions, including survey papers on applications of group theory in cryptography, research papers on various aspects of statistical group theory, and papers on more traditional combinatorial group theory. The book is suitable for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in group theory and its applications to cryptography.
A concise, modern textbook on group theory written especially for physicists Although group theory is a mathematical subject, it is indispensable to many areas of modern theoretical physics, from atomic physics to condensed matter physics, particle physics to string theory. In particular, it is essential for an understanding of the fundamental forces. Yet until now, what has been missing is a modern, accessible, and self-contained textbook on the subject written especially for physicists. Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists fills this gap, providing a user-friendly and classroom-tested text that focuses on those aspects of group theory physicists most need to know. From the basic intuitive notion of a group, A. Zee takes readers all the way up to how theories based on gauge groups could unify three of the four fundamental forces. He also includes a concise review of the linear algebra needed for group theory, making the book ideal for self-study. Provides physicists with a modern and accessible introduction to group theory Covers applications to various areas of physics, including field theory, particle physics, relativity, and much more Topics include finite group and character tables; real, pseudoreal, and complex representations; Weyl, Dirac, and Majorana equations; the expanding universe and group theory; grand unification; and much more The essential textbook for students and an invaluable resource for researchers Features a brief, self-contained treatment of linear algebra An online illustration package is available to professors Solutions manual (available only to professors)
This famous book was the first treatise on Lie groups in which a modern point of view was adopted systematically, namely, that a continuous group can be regarded as a global object. To develop this idea to its fullest extent, Chevalley incorporated a broad range of topics, such as the covering spaces of topological spaces, analytic manifolds, integration of complete systems of differential equations on a manifold, and the calculus of exterior differential forms. The book opens with a short description of the classical groups: unitary groups, orthogonal groups, symplectic groups, etc. These special groups are then used to illustrate the general properties of Lie groups, which are considered later. The general notion of a Lie group is defined and correlated with the algebraic notion of a Lie algebra; the subgroups, factor groups, and homomorphisms of Lie groups are studied by making use of the Lie algebra. The last chapter is concerned with the theory of compact groups, culminating in Peter-Weyl's theorem on the existence of representations. Given a compact group, it is shown how one can construct algebraically the corresponding Lie group with complex parameters which appears in the form of a certain algebraic variety (associated algebraic group). This construction is intimately related to the proof of the generalization given by Tannaka of Pontrjagin's duality theorem for Abelian groups. The continued importance of Lie groups in mathematics and theoretical physics make this an indispensable volume for researchers in both fields.
" This introductory exposition of group theory by an eminent Russian mathematician is particularly suited to undergraduates, developing material of fundamental importance in a clear and rigorous fashion. A wealth of simple examples, primarily geometrical, illustrate the primary concepts. Exercises at the end of each chapter provide additional reinforcement. 1959 edition"--
