This book is wholeheartedly recommended to every student or user of mathematics. Although the author modestly describes his book as 'merely an attempt to talk about' algebra, he succeeds in writing an extremely original and highly informative essay on algebra and its place in modern mathematics and science. From the fields, commutative rings and groups studied in every university math course, through Lie groups and algebras to cohomology and category theory, the author shows how the origins of each algebraic concept can be related to attempts to model phenomena in physics or in other branches of mathematics. Comparable in style with Hermann Weyl's evergreen essay The Classical Groups, Shafarevich's new book is sure to become required reading for mathematicians, from beginners to experts.

Algebra I: Basic Notions of Algebra (Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences) (English and Russian Edition)

Science & Math

Aleksei Ivanovich Kostrikin

Mathematics

Springer, Verlag

Group theory is one of the most fundamental branches of mathematics. This volume of the Encyclopaedia is devoted to two important subjects within group theory. The first part of the book is concerned with infinite groups. The authors deal with combinatorial group theory, free constructions through group actions on trees, algorithmic problems, periodic groups and the Burnside problem, and the structure theory for Abelian, soluble and nilpotent groups. They have included the very latest developments; however, the material is accessible to readers familiar with the basic concepts of algebra. The second part treats the theory of linear groups. It is a genuinely encyclopaedic survey written for non-specialists. The topics covered include the classical groups, algebraic groups, topological methods, conjugacy theorems, and finite linear groups. This book will be very useful to all mathematicians, physicists and other scientists including graduate students who use group theory in their work.

Algebra IV: Infinite Groups, Linear Groups (Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences)

This volume of the Encyclopaedia presents a modern approach to homological algebra, which is based on the systematic use of the terminology and ideas of derived categories and derived functors. The book contains applications of homological algebra to the theory of sheaves on topological spaces, to Hodge theory, and to the theory of sheaves on topological spaces, to Hodge theory, and to the theory of modules over rings of algebraic differential operators (algebraic D-modules). The authors Gelfand and Manin explain all the main ideas of the theory of derived categories. Both authors are well-known researchers and the second, Manin, is famous for his work in algebraic geometry and mathematical physics. The book is an excellent reference for graduate students and researchers in mathematics and also for physicists who use methods from algebraic geomtry and algebraic topology.

Algebra V: Homological Algebra (Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences)

Igor R. Shafarevich

Yuri Manin

S.I. Gel'fand

The monograph aims at a general outline of old and new results on representations of finite-dimensional algebras. In a theory which developed rapidly during the last two decades, the lack of textbooks is the main impediment for novices. Therefore special attention is paid to the foundations, and proofs are included for statements which are elementary, serve comprehension or are scarcely available. In this manner the authors try to lead the reader up to a point where he can find his way through the original literature. The discourse is centered around the fairly complete theory of finitely-represented posets and algebras. The monograph provides many examples and all the needed background on decomposition theorems, quivers, almost split sequences and derived categories. It includes a survey on representations of tame and wild quivers, lists of critical algebras and a proof of the old conjectures of Brauer and Thrall.

Algebra VIII: Representations of Finite-Dimensional Algebras (Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences)

The algebra of square matrices of size n ~ 2 over the field of complex numbers is, evidently, the best-known example of a non-commutative alge 1 bra • Subalgebras and subrings of this algebra (for example, the ring of n x n matrices with integral entries) arise naturally in many areas of mathemat ics. Historically however, the study of matrix algebras was preceded by the discovery of quatemions which, introduced in 1843 by Hamilton, found ap plications in the classical mechanics of the past century. Later it turned out that quaternion analysis had important applications in field theory. The al gebra of quaternions has become one of the classical mathematical objects; it is used, for instance, in algebra, geometry and topology. We will briefly focus on other examples of non-commutative rings and algebras which arise naturally in mathematics and in mathematical physics. The exterior algebra (or Grassmann algebra) is widely used in differential geometry - for example, in geometric theory of integration. Clifford algebras, which include exterior algebras as a special case, have applications in rep resentation theory and in algebraic topology. The Weyl algebra (Le. algebra of differential operators with· polynomial coefficients) often appears in the representation theory of Lie algebras. In recent years modules over the Weyl algebra and sheaves of such modules became the foundation of the so-called microlocal analysis. The theory of operator algebras (Le.

Algebra II: Noncommutative Rings Identities (Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences)

Springer