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Originally published in 1984, the principal objective of this book is to make the general theory of field extensions accessible to any reader with a modest background in groups, rings and vector spaces. Galois theory is generally regarded as one of the central and most beautiful parts of algebra and its creation marked the culmination of investigations by generations of mathematicians on one of the oldest problems in algebra, the solvability of polynomial equations by radicals.

Originally published in 1981, this book forms volume 15 of the Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications. The text provides a clear and thorough treatment of its subject, adhering to a clean exposition of the mathematical content of serious formulations of rational physical alternatives of quantum theory as elaborated in the influential works of the period, to which the authors made a significant contribution. The treatment falls into three distinct, logical parts: in the first part, the modern version of accumulated wisdom is presented, avoiding as far as possible the traditional language of classical physics for its interpretational character; in the second part, the individual structural elements for the logical content of the theory are laid out; in part three, the results of section two are used to reconstruct the usual Hilbert space formulation of quantum mechanics in a novel way.

The purpose of this book, which was first published in 1978, is to give a complete account of the theory of permanents, their history and applications. This volume was the first complete account of the theory of permanents, covering virtually the whole of the subject, a feature that no simple survey of the theory of matrices can even attempt. The work also contains many results stated without formal proofs. This book can be used as a textbook at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level. The only prerequisites are a standard undergraduate course in the theory of matrices and a measure of mathematical maturity.

The algebraic theory of automata was created by Schutzenberger and Chomsky over 50 years ago and there has since been a great deal of development. Classical work on the theory to noncommutative power series has been augmented more recently to areas such as representation theory, combinatorial mathematics and theoretical computer science. This book presents to an audience of graduate students and researchers a modern account of the subject and its applications. The algebraic approach allows the theory to be developed in a general form of wide applicability. For example, number-theoretic results can now be more fully explored, in addition to applications in automata theory, codes and non-commutative algebra. Much material, for example, Schutzenberger's theorem on polynomially bounded rational series, appears here for the first time in book form. This is an excellent resource and reference for all those working in algebra, theoretical computer science and their areas of overlap.

This comprehensive introduction to the calculus of variations and its main principles also presents their real-life applications in various contexts: mathematical physics, differential geometry, and optimization in economics. Based on the authors' original work, it provides an overview of the field, with examples and exercises suitable for graduate students entering research. The method of presentation will appeal to readers with diverse backgrounds in functional analysis, differential geometry and partial differential equations. Each chapter includes detailed heuristic arguments, providing thorough motivation for the material developed later in the text. Since much of the material has a strong geometric flavor, the authors have supplemented the text with figures to illustrate the abstract concepts. Its extensive reference list and index also make this a valuable resource for researchers working in a variety of fields who are interested in partial differential equations and functional analysis.

This book provides researchers and graduate students with a thorough introduction to the variational analysis of nonlinear problems described by nonlocal operators. The authors give a systematic treatment of the basic mathematical theory and constructive methods for these classes of nonlinear equations, plus their application to various processes arising in the applied sciences. The equations are examined from several viewpoints, with the calculus of variations as the unifying theme. Part I begins the book with some basic facts about fractional Sobolev spaces. Part II is dedicated to the analysis of fractional elliptic problems involving subcritical nonlinearities, via classical variational methods and other novel approaches. Finally, Part III contains a selection of recent results on critical fractional equations. A careful balance is struck between rigorous mathematics and physical applications, allowing readers to see how these diverse topics relate to other important areas, including topology, functional analysis, mathematical physics, and potential theory.

The Representation Theory of the Symmetric Group provides an account of both the ordinary and modular representation theory of the symmetric groups. The range of applications of this theory is vast, varying from theoretical physics, through combinatories to the study of polynomial identity algebras; and new uses are still being found.

This book develops the theory of partitions. Simply put, the partitions of a number are the ways of writing that number as sums of positive integers. For example, the five partitions of 4 are 4, 3+1, 2+2, 2+1+1, and 1+1+1+1. Surprisingly, such a simple matter requires some deep mathematics for its study. This book considers the many theoretical aspects of this subject, which have in turn recently found applications to statistical mechanics, computer science and other branches of mathematics. With minimal prerequisites, this book is suitable for students as well as researchers in combinatorics, analysis, and number theory.

Ordered sets are ubiquitous in mathematics and have significant applications in computer science, statistics, biology and the social sciences. As the first book to deal exclusively with finite ordered sets, this book will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in all of these areas. Beginning with definitions of key concepts and fundamental results (Dilworth's and Sperner's theorem, interval and semiorders, Galois connection, duality with distributive lattices, coding and dimension theory), the authors then present applications of these structures in fields such as preference modelling and aggregation, operational research and management, cluster and concept analysis, and data mining. Exercises are included at the end of each chapter with helpful hints provided for some of the most difficult examples. The authors also point to further topics of ongoing research.

This comprehensive volume on ergodic control for diffusions highlights intuition alongside technical arguments. A concise account of Markov process theory is followed by a complete development of the fundamental issues and formalisms in control of diffusions. This then leads to a comprehensive treatment of ergodic control, a problem that straddles stochastic control and the ergodic theory of Markov processes. The interplay between the probabilistic and ergodic-theoretic aspects of the problem, notably the asymptotics of empirical measures on one hand, and the analytic aspects leading to a characterization of optimality via the associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation on the other, is clearly revealed. The more abstract controlled martingale problem is also presented, in addition to many other related issues and models. Assuming only graduate-level probability and analysis, the authors develop the theory in a manner that makes it accessible to users in applied mathematics, engineering, finance and operations research.

Special functions, natural generalizations of the elementary functions, have been studied for centuries. The greatest mathematicians, among them Euler, Gauss, Legendre, Eisenstein, Riemann, and Ramanujan, have laid the foundations for this beautiful and useful area of mathematics. This treatise presents an overview of special functions, focusing primarily on hypergeometric functions and the associated hypergeometric series, including Bessel functions and classical orthogonal polynomials, using the basic building block of the gamma function. In addition to relatively new work on gamma and beta functions, such as Selberg's multidimensional integrals, many important but relatively unknown nineteenth century results are included. Other topics include q-extensions of beta integrals and of hypergeometric series, Bailey chains, spherical harmonics, and applications to combinatorial problems. The authors provide organizing ideas, motivation, and historical background for the study and application of some important special functions. This clearly expressed and readable work can serve as a learning tool and lasting reference for students and researchers in special functions, mathematical physics, differential equations, mathematical computing, number theory, and combinatorics.

Famous mathematical constants include the ratio of circular circumference to diameter, pi=3.14 ..., and the natural logarithmic base, e=2.178 ... Students and professionals usually can name at most a few others, but there are many more buried in the literature and awaiting discovery. How do such constants arise, and why are they important? Here Steven Finch provides 136 essays, each devoted to a mathematical constant or a class of constants, from the well known to the highly exotic. Topics covered include the statistics of continued fractions, chaos in nonlinear systems, prime numbers, sum-free sets, isoperimetric problems, approximation theory, self-avoiding walks and the Ising model (from statistical physics), binary and digital search trees (from theoretical computer science), the Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence, complex analysis, geometric probability and the traveling salesman problem. This book will be helpful both to readers seeking information about a specific constant, and to readers who desire a panoramic view of all constants coming from a particular field, for example combinatorial enumeration or geometric optimization. Unsolved problems appear virtually everywhere as well. This is an outstanding scholarly attempt to bring together all significant mathematical constants in one place.

Information content and programming semantics are just two of the applications of the mathematical concepts of order, continuity and domains. The authors develop the mathematical foundations of partially ordered sets with completeness properties of various degrees, in particular directed complete ordered sets and complete lattices. Uniquely, they focus on partially ordered sets that have an extra order relation, modelling the notion that one element 'finitely approximates' another, something closely related to intrinsic topologies linking order and topology. Extensive use is made of topological ideas, both by defining useful topologies on the structures themselves and by developing close connections with numerous aspects of topology. The theory so developed not only has applications to computer science but also within mathematics to such areas as analysis, the spectral theory of algebras and the theory of computability. This authoritative, comprehensive account of the subject will be essential for all those working in the area.

The book provides a general introduction to the theory of large deviations and a wide overview of the metastable behaviour of stochastic dynamics. With only minimal prerequisites, the book covers all the main results and brings the reader to the most recent developments. Particular emphasis is given to the fundamental Freidlin-Wentzell results on small random perturbations of dynamical systems. Metastability is first described on physical grounds, following which more rigorous approaches to its description are developed. Many relevant examples are considered from the point of view of the so-called pathwise approach. The first part of the book develops the relevant tools including the theory of large deviations which are then used to provide a physically relevant dynamical description of metastability. Written to be accessible to graduate students, this book provides an excellent route into contemporary research.

Combinatorics on words has arisen independently within several branches of mathematics, for instance number theory, group theory and probability, and appears frequently in problems related to theoretical computer science. The first unified treatment of the area was given in Lothaire's book Combinatorics on Words. Originally published in 2002, this book presents several more topics and provides deeper insights into subjects discussed in the previous volume. An introductory chapter provides the reader with all the necessary background material. There are numerous examples, full proofs whenever possible and a notes section discussing further developments in the area. This book is both a comprehensive introduction to the subject and a valuable reference source for researchers.

The first modern treatment of orthogonal polynomials from the viewpoint of special functions is now available in paperback. Its encyclopedic coverage includes classical topics such as Jacobi, Hermite, Laguerre, Hahn, Charlier and Meixner polynomials as well as those discovered over the last 50 years, e.g. Askey-Wilson and Al-Salam-Chihara polynomial systems. Multiple orthogonal polynomials are discussed here for the first time in book form. Many modern applications of the subject are dealt with, including birth and death processes, integrable systems, combinatorics, and physical models. A chapter on open research problems and conjectures is designed to stimulate further research on the subject. Thoroughly updated and corrected since its original printing, this book continues to be valued as an authoritative reference not only by mathematicians, but also a wide range of scientists and engineers. Exercises ranging in difficulty are included to help both the graduate student and the newcomer.

The combinatorial theory of species, introduced by Joyal in 1980, provides a unified understanding of the use of generating functions for both labelled and unlabelled structures and as a tool for the specification and analysis of these structures. Of particular importance is their capacity to transform recursive definitions of tree-like structures into functional or differential equations, and vice versa. The goal of this book is to present the basic elements of the theory and to give a unified account of its developments and applications. It offers a modern introduction to the use of various generating functions, with applications to graphical enumeration, Polya theory and analysis of data structures in computer science, and to other areas such as special functions, functional equations, asymptotic analysis and differential equations. This book will be a valuable reference to graduate students and researchers in combinatorics, analysis, and theoretical computer science.

This book is intended as a self-contained introduction for non-specialists, or as a reference work for experts, to the particular area of approximation theory that is concerned with exact constants. The results apply mainly to extremal problems in approximation theory, which in turn are closely related to numerical analysis and optimization. The book encompasses a wide range of questions and problems: best approximation by polynomials and splines; linear approximation methods, such as spline-approximation; optimal reconstruction of functions and linear functionals. Many of the results are based on deep facts from analysis and function theory, such as duality theory and comparison theorems; these are presented in chapters 1 and 3. In keeping with the author's intention to make the book as self-contained as possible, chapter 2 contains an introduction to polynomial and spline approximation. Chapters 4 to 7 apply the theory to specific classes of functions. The last chapter deals with n-widths and generalises some of the ideas of the earlier chapters. Each chapter concludes with commentary, exercises and extensions of results. A substantial bibliography is included. Many of the results collected here have not been gathered together in book form before, so it will be essential reading for approximation theorists.

The Banach-Tarski paradox is a most striking mathematical construction: it asserts that a solid ball may be taken apart into finitely many pieces that can be rearranged using rigid motions to form a ball twice as large as the original. This volume explores the consequences of the paradox for measure theory and its connections with group theory, geometry, and logic. It unifies the results of contemporary research on the paradox and presents several new results including some unusual paradoxes in hyperbolic space. It also provides up-to-date proofs and discusses many unsolved problems.

In this book, which was originally published in 1985, Arto Salomaa gives an introduction to certain mathematical topics central to theoretical computer science: computability and recursive functions, formal languages and automata, computational complexity and cryptography. Without sacrificing readability, the presentation is essentially self-contained, with detailed proofs of all statements provided. Professor Salomaa is well known for his books in this area. The present work provides an insight into the basics, together with explanations of some of the more important developments in the field.

This reference book provides the main definitions, theorems and techniques in the theory of Birkhoff interpolation by polynomials. The book begins with an article by G. G. Lorentz that discusses some of the important developments in approximation and interpolation in the last twenty years. It presents all the basic material known at the present time in a unified manner. Topics discussed include; applications of Birkhoff interpolation to approximation theory, quadrature formulas and Chebyshev systems; lacunary interpolation at special knots and an introduction to the theory of Birkhoff interpolation by splines.

Regular polytopes and their symmetry have a long history. This book, the first to cover modern theory, explores the subject in depth, introducing new techniques and elementary approaches to familiar ideas. It caters for experienced researchers and also for graduate students in discrete and Euclidean geometry, combinatorics and group theory.

Proof complexity is a rich subject drawing on methods from logic, combinatorics, algebra and computer science. This self-contained book presents the basic concepts, classical results, current state of the art and possible future directions in the field. Suitable for doctoral students and researchers in mathematics and theoretical computer science.

The author continues his outstanding scholarly attempt to bring together all significant mathematical constants in one place. Using this book, students and professionals will discover hidden links between apparently disconnected fields of inquiry. Unsolved problems - the lifeblood of mathematics - appear virtually everywhere as well.

This two-volume work presents the main known equivalents to the Riemann hypothesis, perhaps the most important problem in mathematics. Volume 2 covers equivalents with a strong analytic orientation and is supported by an extensive set of appendices.

This two-volume work presents the main known equivalents to the Riemann hypothesis, perhaps the most important problem in mathematics. Volume 1 presents classical and modern arithmetic equivalents, with some analytic methods. Accompanying software is freely available online.

In this fourth and final volume the author covers extensions of Buchberger's Algorithm, including a discussion of the most promising recent alternatives to Groebner bases: Gerdt's involutive bases and Faugere's F4 and F5 algorithms. This completes the author's comprehensive treatise, which is a fundamental reference for any mathematical library.

Written by acknowledged international experts in the field, this book provides a broad survey of chromatic graph theory. It serves as a valuable reference for researchers and graduate students in graph theory and combinatorics and as a useful introduction to the topic for mathematicians in related fields.

Monoidal Topology will appeal to a broad range of mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists who work with ordered, metric and topological structures. It presents frontline research in a number of fields and provides all the necessary pre-requisites in order and category theory.

Serving both as an introduction to the subject and as a reference, this book covers the general theory and emphasizes the classical types of orthogonal polynomials, or those of Gaussian type. Containing 25% brand new material, this revised edition reflects progress made in the field over the past decade.