This book provides a self-contained introduction to typical properties of volume preserving homeomorphisms, examples of which include transitivity, chaos and ergodicity. The authors make the first part of the book very concrete by focusing on volume preserving homeomorphisms of the unit n-dimensional cube. They also prove fixed point theorems (Conley-Zehnder-Franks). This is done in a number of short self-contained chapters that would be suitable for an undergraduate analysis seminar or a graduate lecture course. Parts Two and Three consider compact manifolds and sigma compact manifolds...

This book presents the basic theory of the symmetry of solutions to second-order elliptic partial differential equations by means of the maximum principle. It proceeds from elementary facts about the linear case to recent results about positive solutions of nonlinear elliptic equations. Gidas, Ni and Nirenberg, building on the work of Alexandrov and Serrin, have shown that the shape of the set on which such elliptic equations are solved has a strong effect on the form of positive solutions. In particular, if the equation and its boundary condition allow spherically symmetric solutions, then,...

The Levy Laplacian is an infinite-dimensional generalization of the well-known classical Laplacian. The theory has become well developed in recent years and this book was the first systematic treatment of the Levy Laplace operator. The book describes the infinite-dimensional analogues of finite-dimensional results, and more especially those features which appear only in the generalized context. It develops a theory of operators generated by the Levy Laplacian and the symmetrized Levy Laplacian, as well as a theory of linear and nonlinear equations involving it. There are many problems leading...

This monograph offers a broad investigative tool in ergodic theory and measurable dynamics. The motivation for this work is that one may measure how similar two dynamical systems are by asking how much the time structure of orbits of one system must be distorted for it to become the other. Different restrictions on the allowed distortion will lead to different restricted orbit equivalence theories. These include Ornstein's Isomorphism theory, Kakutani Equivalence theory and a list of others. By putting such restrictions in an axiomatic framework, a general approach is developed that...

The purpose of this 1982 book is to present an introduction to developments which had taken place in finite group theory related to finite geometries. This book is practically self-contained and readers are assumed to have only an elementary knowledge of linear algebra. Among other things, complete descriptions of the following theorems are given in this book; the nilpotency of Frobneius kernels, Galois and Burnside theorems on permutation groups of prime degree, the Omstrom Wagner theorem on projective planes, and the O'Nan and Ito theorems on characterizations of projective special linear...

This introduction treats the classical isoperimetric inequality in Euclidean space and contrasting rough inequalities in noncompact Riemannian manifolds. In Euclidean space the emphasis is on a most general form of the inequality sufficiently precise to characterize the case of equality, and in Riemannian manifolds the emphasis is on those qualitiative features of the inequality that provide insight into the coarse geometry at infinity of Riemannian manifolds. The treatment in Euclidean space features a number of proofs of the classical inequality in increasing generality, providing in the...

This book investigates the high degree of symmetry that lies hidden in integrable systems. To that end, differential equations arising from classical mechanics, such as the KdV equation and the KP equations, are used here by the authors to introduce the notion of an infinite dimensional transformation group acting on spaces of integrable systems. Chapters discuss the work of M. Sato on the algebraic structure of completely integrable systems, together with developments of these ideas in the work of M. Kashiwara. The text should be accessible to anyone with a knowledge of differential and...

Originally published in 1907 as number seven in the Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics series, this book provides a concise account regarding the theory of optical instruments. The text was written with the aim of leading 'directly from the first elements of Optics to those parts of the subject which are of greatest importance to workers with optical instruments'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in optics, physics and mathematics.

First published in 1914, as the second edition of a 1909 original, this book forms number ten in the Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics series. It was written to provide readers with 'the main portions of the theory of integral equations in a readable and, at the same time, accurate form, following roughly the lines of historical development'. Textual notes are incorporated throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in integral equations and the history of mathematics.

Originally published in 1911 as number thirteen in the Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics series, this book presents a general survey of the problem of the 27 lines upon the cubic surface. Illustrative figures and a bibliography are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in cubic surfaces and the history of mathematics.