302 pages, 9x6 inches
Feb 2005 Hardcover
ISBN 1-58949-038-X
Description:
This book is an introduction to special relativity for
undergraduates in physics and mathematics. It is shaped by two
convictions: (1) Relativity is not a "side issue" or
"special topic". Rather, it is an essential unifying
idea that illuminates every branch of physics. (2) The best way
to teach relativity is to adopt a "spacetime" point of
view from the start. A physical situation may appear different to
different observers, but every observer must see the same four-dimensional
spacetime.
Beginning with an introduction to spacetime ideas and basic
relativistic effects, the book moves on to four-vectors, frames
of reference, energy and momentum, and the spacetime description
of waves. The second half of the book, written at a somewhat
higher mathematical level, discusses relativistic forces,
tensors, the physics of continuous systems such as fluids, and
the electromagnetic field. Three appendices give a review of
vector algebra and calculus, provide an historical account of the
development of relativity, and describe the "kernel-index"
notation used in advanced texts on special and general relativity.
The book should be accessible to students who have completed a
calculus-based introductory physics course. It may be used as the
main text for a semester-long course on special relativity, or as
a supplemental text in courses on modern physics, mechanics,
electromagnetism, or general relativity.
Benjamin Schumacher began his theoretical physics career as a
student of relativity pioneer John Archibald Wheeler, doing
research on black hole thermodynamics. He is best known for his
fundamental contributions to quantum information theory, for
which he received the 2002 Quantum Communications Award (the
premier international prize in the field). He has been a
Rosenbaum Fellow at the Isaac Newton Institute of Cambridge
University and a Moore Distinguished Scholar at Caltech. At
present he is Professor of Physics at Kenyon College, where he
has been on the faculty since 1988.
Lecture Notes in Logic, 18
Summary
In fall 2000, the Notre Dame logic community hosted Greg Hjorth,
Rodney G. Downey, Zoe Chatzidakis, and Paola D?Aquino as visiting
lecturers. Each of them presented a month long series of
expository lectures at the graduate level. The articles in this
volume are refinements of these excellent lectures.
ISBN: 1-56881-250-7
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1-56881-249-3
Format: Hardback
Pages: 200
Lecture Notes in Logic, 19
Summary
This compilation of papers presented at the 2000 European Summer
Meeting of the Association for Symbolic Logic marks the centenial
anniversery of Hilbert?s famous lecture. Held in the same hall at
La Sorbonne where Hilbert first presented his famous problems,
this meeting carries special significance to the Mathematics and
Logic communities.
The presentations include tutorials and research articles from
some of the world?s preeminent logicians. Three long articles are
based on tutorials given at the meeting, and present accessible
expositions of devloping research in three active areas of logic:
model theory, computability, and set theory.
The eleven subsequent articles cover seperate research topics in
all areas of mathematical logic, including: aspects in Computer
Science, Proof Theory, Set Theory, Model Theory, Computability
Theory, and aspects of Philosophy.
ISBN: 1-56881-251-5
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 1-56881-252-3
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 350
Summary
Take an apple and cut it into five pieces. Would you believe that
these five pieces can be reassembled in such a fashion so as to
create two apples equal in shape and size to the original? Would
you believe that you could make something as large as the sun by
breaking a pea into a finite number of pieces and putting it back
together again? Neither did Leonard Wapner, author of The Pea and
the Sun, when he was first introduced to the Banach-Tarski
paradox, which asserts exactly such a notion.
Written in an engaging style, The Pea and the Sun catalogues the
people, events, and mathematics that contributed to the discovery
of Banach and Tarskifs magical paradox. Wapner makes one of the
most interesting problems of advanced mathematics accessible to
the non-mathematician.
ISBN: 1-56881-213-2
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 300
Summary
A comprehensive study of the main research done in polynomial
identities over the last 25 years, including Kemerfs solution
to the Specht problem in characteristic O and examples in the
characteristic p situation.
The authors also cover codimension theory, starting with Regevfs
theorem and continuing through the Giambruno-Zaicev exponential
rank.
The gbesth proofs of classical results, such as the existence
of central polynomials, the tensor product theorem, the
nilpotence of the radical of an affine PI-algebra, Shirshovfs
theorem, and characterization of group algebras with PI, are
presented.
ISBN: 1-56881-163-2
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 400