"Spherical soap bubbles", isometric minimal immersions of round spheres into round spheres, or spherical immersions for short, belong to a fast growing and fascinating area between algebra and geometry. In this accessible book, the author traces the development of the study of spherical minimal immersions over the past 30 plus years, including a valuable selection of exercises.

This textbook treats two important and related matters in convex geometry: the quantification of symmetry of a convex set—measures of symmetry—and the degree to which convex sets that nearly minimize such measures of symmetry are themselves nearly symmetric—the phenomenon of stability. By gathering the subject’s core ideas and highlights around Grünbaum’s general notion of measure of symmetry, it paints a coherent picture of the subject, and guides the reader from the basics to the state-of-the-art. The exposition takes various paths to results in order to develop the reader’s grasp of the unity of ideas, while interspersed remarks enrich the material with a behind-the-scenes view of corollaries and logical connections, alternative proofs, and allied results from the literature. Numerous illustrations elucidate definitions and key constructions, and over 70 exercises—with hints and references for the more difficult ones—test and sharpen the reader’s comprehension. The presentation includes: a basic course covering foundational notions in convex geometry, the three pillars of the combinatorial theory (the theorems of Carathéodory, Radon, and Helly), critical sets and Minkowski measure, the Minkowski–Radon inequality, and, to illustrate the general theory, a study of convex bodies of constant width; two proofs of F. John’s ellipsoid theorem; a treatment of the stability of Minkowski measure, the Banach–Mazur metric, and Groemer’s stability estimate for the Brunn–Minkowski inequality; important specializations of Grünbaum’s abstract measure of symmetry, such as Winternitz measure, the Rogers–Shepard volume ratio, and Guo’s Lp -Minkowski measure; a construction by the author of a new sequence of measures of symmetry, the kth mean Minkowski measure; and lastly, an intriguing application to the moduli space of certain distinguished maps from a Riemannian homogeneous space to spheres—illustrating the broad mathematical relevance of the book’s subject.

Lie groups has been an increasing area of focus and rich research since the middle of the 20th century. In Lie Groups: An Approach through Invariants and Representations, the author's masterful approach gives the reader a comprehensive treatment of the classical Lie groups along with an extensive introduction to a wide range of topics associated with Lie groups: symmetric functions, theory of algebraic forms, Lie algebras, tensor algebra and symmetry, semisimple Lie algebras, algebraic groups, group representations, invariants, Hilbert theory, and binary forms with fields ranging from pure algebra to functional analysis. By covering sufficient background material, the book is made accessible to a reader with a relatively modest mathematical background. Historical information, examples, exercises are all woven into the text. This unique exposition is suitable for a broad audience, including advanced undergraduates, graduates, mathematicians in a variety of areas from pure algebra to functional analysis and mathematical physics.

This self-contained treatment of Morse Theory focuses on applications and is intended for a graduate course on differential or algebraic topology. The book is divided into three conceptually distinct parts. The first part contains the foundations of Morse theory (over the reals). The second part consists of applications of Morse theory over the reals, while the last part describes the basics and some applications of complex Morse theory, a.k.a. Picard-Lefschetz theory. This is the first textbook to include topics such as Morse-Smale flows, min-max theory, moment maps and equivariant cohomology, and complex Morse theory. The exposition is enhanced with examples, problems, and illustrations, and will be of interest to graduate students as well as researchers. The reader is expected to have some familiarity with cohomology theory and with the differential and integral calculus on smooth manifolds. Liviu Nicolaescu is Associate Professor of Mathematics at University of Notre Dame.

Introductory Probability is a pleasure to read and provides a fine answer to the question: How do you construct Brownian motion from scratch, given that you are a competent analyst? There are at least two ways to develop probability theory. The more familiar path is to treat it as its own discipline, and work from intuitive examples such as coin flips and conundrums such as the Monty Hall problem. An alternative is to first develop measure theory and analysis, and then add interpretation. Bhattacharya and Waymire take the second path.

The book offers a direct and up-to-date introduction to the theory of one-parameter semigroups of linear operators on Banach spaces. The book is intended for students and researchers who want to become acquainted with the concept of semigroups.

This is a description of the underlying principles of algebraic geometry, some of its important developments in the twentieth century, and some of the problems that occupy its practitioners today. It is intended for the working or the aspiring mathematician who is unfamiliar with algebraic geometry but wishes to gain an appreciation of its foundations and its goals with a minimum of prerequisites. Few algebraic prerequisites are presumed beyond a basic course in linear algebra.

This should be a revelation for mathematics undergraduates. Having evolved from Runde’s notes for an introductory topology course at the University of Alberta, this essential text provides a concise introduction to set-theoretic topology, as well as some algebraic topology. It is accessible to undergraduates from the second year on, and even beginning graduate students can benefit from some sections. The well-chosen selection of examples is accessible to students who have a background in calculus and elementary algebra, but not necessarily in real or complex analysis. In places, Runde’s text treats its material differently to other books on the subject, providing a fresh perspective.

Affordable softcover second edition of bestselling title (over 1000 copies sold of previous edition) A primer in harmonic analysis on the undergraduate level Gives a lean and streamlined introduction to the central concepts of this beautiful and utile theory. Entirely based on the Riemann integral and metric spaces instead of the more demanding Lebesgue integral and abstract topology. Almost all proofs are given in full and all central concepts are presented clearly. Provides an introduction to Fourier analysis, leading up to the Poisson Summation Formula. Make the reader aware of the fact that both principal incarnations of Fourier theory, the Fourier series and the Fourier transform, are special cases of a more general theory arising in the context of locally compact abelian groups. Introduces the reader to the techniques used in harmonic analysis of noncommutative groups. These techniques are explained in the context of matrix groups as a principal example.

This book starts with an introduction to quantitative texture analysis (QTA), which adopts conventions (active rotations, definition of Euler angles, Wigner D-functions) that conform to those of the present-day mathematics and physics literature. Basic concepts (e.g., orientation; orientation distribution function (ODF), orientation density function, and their relationship) are made precise through their mathematical definition. Parts II and III delve deeper into the mathematical foundations of QTA, where the important role played by group representations is emphasized. Part II includes one chapter on generalized QTA based on the orthogonal group, and Part III one on tensorial Fourier expansion of the ODF and tensorial texture coefficients. This work will appeal to students and practitioners who appreciate a precise presentation of QTA through a unifying mathematical language, and to researchers who are interested in applications of group representations to texture analysis. Previously published in the Journal of Elasticity, Volume 149, issues 1-2, April, 2022