Emergence of the Theory of Lie Groups
Subtitle: An Essay in the History of Mathematics 1869-1926
By: by Thomas Hawkins
Series: Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences; Sources and studies in the history of mathematics and physical sciences
Publisher: Springer New York
Published: 2000
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Number of pages: 566
ISBN-13: 9781461270423; 9781461212027
Subjects: Group theory; Mathematics
Description: Written by the recipient of the 1997 MAA Chauvenet Prize for mathematical exposition, this book tells how the theory of Lie groups emerged from a fascinating cross fertilization of many strains of 19th and early 20th century geometry, analysis, mathematical physics, algebra and topology. The reader will meet a host of mathematicians from the period and become acquainted with the major mathematical schools. The first part describes the geometrical and analytical considerations that initiated the theory at the hands of the Norwegian mathematician, Sophus Lie. The main figure in the second part is Weierstrass'student Wilhelm Killing, whose interest in the foundations of non-Euclidean geometry led to his discovery of almost all the central concepts and theorems on the structure and classification of semisimple Lie algebras. The scene then shifts to the Paris mathematical community and Elie Cartans work on the representation of Lie algebras. The final part describes the influential, unifying contributions of Hermann Weyl and their context: Hilberts Göttingen, general relativity and the Frobenius-Schur theory of characters. The book is written with the conviction that mathematical understanding is deepened by familiarity with underlying motivations and the less formal, more intuitive manner of original conception. The human side of the story is evoked through extensive use of correspondence between mathematicians. The book should prove enlightening to a broad range of readers, including prospective students of Lie theory, mathematicians, physicists and historians and philosophers of science.
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Table of contents: title: Preface; title: The Geometrical Origins of Lie's theory; title: Jacobi & The Analytical Origins of Lie's Theory; title: Lie's Theory of Transformation Groups 1874-1893; title: Non-euclidean Geometry & Weierstrassian Mathematics; title: Killing & the Structure of Lie Algebras; title: The Doctoral Thesis of Elie Cartan; title: Lie's School & Linear Representations; title: Cartan's Trilogy: 1913-14; title: The Göttingen School of Hilbert; title: The Berlin Algebraists: Frobenius & Schur; title: From Relativity to Representations; title: Weyl's Great Papers of 1925 & 1926; title: References; title: Index.