This book contains the refereed proceedings of the AMS-IMS-SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference on Recent Developments in the Inverse Galois Problem, held in July 1993 at the University of Washington, Seattle. A new review of Serre's Topics in Galois Theory serves as a starting point. The book describes the latest research on explicit presentation of the absolute Galois group of the rationals. Containing the first appearance of generalizations of modular curves, the book presents applications that demonstrate the full scope of the Inverse Galois Problem. In particular, the papers collected here show the ubiquity of the applications of the Inverse Galois Problem and its compelling significance. The book will serve as a guide to progress on the Inverse Galois Problem and as an aid in using this work in other areas of mathematics. This includes coding theory and other finite field applications. Group theory and a first course in algebraic curves are sufficient for understanding many papers in the volume. Graduate students will find this an excellent reference to current research, as it contains a list of problems appropriate for thesis material in arithmetic geometry, algebraic number theory, and group theory.

This book contains the refereed proceedings of the AMS-IMS-SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference on Recent Developments in the Inverse Galois Problem, held in July 1993 at the University of Washington, Seattle. A new review of Serre's Topics in Galois Theory serves as a starting point. The book describes the latest research on explicit presentation of the absolute Galois group of the rationals. Containing the first appearance of generalizations of modular curves, the book presents applications that demonstrate the full scope of the Inverse Galois Problem. In particular, the papers collected here show the ubiquity of the applications of the Inverse Galois Problem and its compelling significance. The book will serve as a guide to progress on the Inverse Galois Problem and as an aid in using this work in other areas of mathematics. This includes coding theory and other finite field applications. Group theory and a first course in algebraic curves are sufficient for understanding many papers in the volume. Graduate students will find this an excellent reference to current research, as it contains a list of problems appropriate for thesis material in arithmetic geometry, algebraic number theory, and group theory.

A consistent and near complete survey of the important progress made in the field over the last few years, with the main emphasis on the rigidity method and its applications. Among others, this monograph presents the most successful existence theorems known and construction methods for Galois extensions as well as solutions for embedding problems combined with a collection of the existing Galois realizations.

A consistent and near complete survey of the important progress made in the field over the last few years, with the main emphasis on the rigidity method and its applications. Among others, this monograph presents the most successful existence theorems known and construction methods for Galois extensions as well as solutions for embedding problems combined with a collection of the existing Galois realizations.

The arithmetic and geometry of moduli spaces and their fundamental groups are a very active research area. This book offers a complete overview of developments made over the last decade. The papers in this volume examine the geometry of moduli spaces of curves with a function on them. The main players in Part 1 are the absolute Galois group $G {\mathbb Q $ of the algebraic numbers and its close relatives. By analyzing how $G {\mathbb Q $ acts on fundamental groups defined by Hurwitz moduli problems, the authors achieve a grand generalization of Serre's program from the 1960s. Papers in Part 2 apply $\theta$-functions and configuration spaces to the study of fundamental groups over positive characteristic fields. In this section, several authors use Grothendieck's famous lifting results to give extensions to wildly ramified covers. Properties of the fundamental groups have brought collaborations between geometers and group theorists. Several Part 3 papers investigate new versions of the genus 0 problem. In particular, this includes results severely limiting possible monodromy groups of sphere covers. Finally, Part 4 papers treat Deligne's theory of Tannakian categories and arithmetic versions of the Kodaira-Spencer map. This volume is geared toward graduate students and research mathematicians interested in arithmetic algebraic geometry.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Number Theory organized by the Stefan Banach International Mathematical Center in Honor of the 60th Birthday of Andrzej Schinzel, Zakopane, Poland, June 30-July 9, 1997.

The legacy of Galois was the beginning of Galois theory as well as group theory. From this common origin, the development of group theory took its own course, which led to great advances in the latter half of the 20th cen tury. It was John Thompson who shaped finite group theory like no-one else, leading the way towards a major milestone of 20th century mathematics, the classification of finite simple groups. After the classification was announced around 1980, it was again J. Thomp son who led the way in exploring its implications for Galois theory. The first question is whether all simple groups occur as Galois groups over the rationals (and related fields), and secondly, how can this be used to show that all finite groups occur (the 'Inverse Problem of Galois Theory'). What are the implica tions for the stmcture and representations of the absolute Galois group of the rationals (and other fields)? Various other applications to algebra and number theory have been found, most prominently, to the theory of algebraic curves (e.g., the Guralnick-Thompson Conjecture on the Galois theory of covers of the Riemann sphere).

This is the third supplementary volume to Kluwer's highly acclaimed twelve-volume Encyclopaedia of Mathematics. This additional volume contains nearly 500 new entries written by experts and covers developments and topics not included in the previous volumes. These entries are arranged alphabetically throughout and a detailed index is included. This supplementary volume enhances the existing twelve volumes, and together, these thirteen volumes represent the most authoritative, comprehensive and up-to-date Encyclopaedia of Mathematics available.