Bücher der Reihe Readings in Mathematics

The famous problems of squaring the circle, doubling the cube and trisecting an angle captured the imagination of both professional and amateur mathematicians for over two thousand years. Despite the enormous effort and ingenious attempts by these men and women, the problems would not yield to purely geometrical methods. It was only the development. of abstract algebra in the nineteenth century which enabled mathematicians to arrive at the surprising conclusion that these constructions are not possible. In this book we develop enough abstract algebra to prove that these constructions are impossible. Our approach introduces all the relevant concepts about fields in a way which is more concrete than usual and which avoids the use of quotient structures (and even of the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two polynomials). Having the geometrical questions as a specific goal provides motivation for the introduction of the algebraic concepts and we have found that students respond very favourably. We have used this text to teach second-year students at La Trobe University over a period of many years, each time refining the material in the light of student performance.

In introducing his essays on the study and understanding of nature and e- lution, biologist Stephen J. Gould writes: [W]e acquire a surprising source of rich and apparently limitless novelty from the primary documents of great thinkers throughout our history. But why should any nuggets, or even ?akes, be left for int- lectual miners in such terrain? Hasn't the Origin of Species been read untold millions of times? Hasn't every paragraph been subjected to overt scholarly scrutiny and exegesis? Letmeshareasecretrootedingeneralhumanfoibles. . . . Veryfew people, including authors willing to commit to paper, ever really read primary sources-certainly not in necessary depth and completion, and often not at all. . . . I can attest that all major documents of science remain cho- full of distinctive and illuminating novelty, if only people will study them-in full and in the original editions. Why would anyone not yearn to read these works; not hunger for the opportunity? [99, p. 6f] It is in the spirit of Gould's insights on an approach to science based on p- mary texts that we o?er the present book of annotated mathematical sources, from which our undergraduate students have been learning for more than a decade. Although teaching and learning with primary historical sources require a commitment of study, the investment yields the rewards of a deeper understanding of the subject, an appreciation of its details, and a glimpse into the direction research has taken. Our students read sequences of primary sources.

Second Year Calculus: From Celestial Mechanics to Special Relativity covers multi-variable and vector calculus, emphasizing the historical physical problems which gave rise to the concepts of calculus. The book guides us from the birth of the mechanized view of the world in Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in which mathematics becomes the ultimate tool for modelling physical reality, to the dawn of a radically new and often counter-intuitive age in Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity in which it is the mathematical model which suggests new aspects of that reality. The development of this process is discussed from the modern viewpoint of differential forms. Using this concept, the student learns to compute orbits and rocket trajectories, model flows and force fields, and derive the laws of electricity and magnetism. These exercises and observations of mathematical symmetry enable the student to better understand the interaction of physics and mathematics.

The primary goal of these lectures is to introduce a beginner to the finite dimensional representations of Lie groups and Lie algebras. This is not surprising: group actions are ubiquitous in 20th century mathematics, and where the object on which a group acts is not a vector space, we have learned to replace it by one that is {e.

. . . that departed from the traditional dry-as-dust mathematics textbook. (M. Kline, from the Preface to the paperback edition of Kline 1972) Also for this reason, I have taken the trouble to make a great number of drawings. (Brieskom & Knorrer, Plane algebraic curves, p. ii) . . . I should like to bring up again for emphasis . . . points, in which my exposition differs especially from the customary presentation in the text- books: 1. Illustration of abstract considerations by means of figures. 2. Emphasis upon its relation to neighboring fields, such as calculus of dif- ferences and interpolation . . . 3. Emphasis upon historical growth. It seems to me extremely important that precisely the prospective teacher should take account of all of these. (F. Klein 1908, Eng\. ed. p. 236) Traditionally, a rigorous first course in Analysis progresses (more or less) in the following order: limits, sets, '* continuous '* derivatives '* integration. mappings functions On the other hand, the historical development of these subjects occurred in reverse order: Archimedes Cantor 1875 Cauchy 1821 Newton 1665 . ;::: Kepler 1615 Dedekind . ;::: Weierstrass . ;::: Leibniz 1675 Fermat 1638 In this book, with the four chapters Chapter I. Introduction to Analysis of the Infinite Chapter II. Differential and Integral Calculus Chapter III. Foundations of Classical Analysis Chapter IV. Calculus in Several Variables, we attempt to restore the historical order, and begin in Chapter I with Cardano, Descartes, Newton, and Euler's famous Introductio.

In this textbook the authors present first-year geometry roughly in the order in which it was discovered. The first five chapters show how the ancient Greeks established geometry, together with its numerous practical applications, while more recent findings on Euclidian geometry are discussed as well.

" Our goals, like those of the other books in the series, are to explain connections and common viewpoints between various mathematical areas, to emphasize the motivation for studying certain prob lem areas, and to present the historical development of our subject.

The authors' novel approach to some interesting mathematical concepts - not normally taught in other courses - places them in a historical and philosophical setting.

Intended for juniors and seniors majoring in mathematics, as well as anyone pursuing independent study, this book traces the historical development of four different mathematical concepts by presenting readers with the original sources.

The purpose of this book is to revive some of the beautiful results obtained by various geometers of the 19th century, and to give its readers a taste of concrete algebraic geometry.