This edited volume presents a fascinating collection of lecture notes focusing on differential equations from two viewpoints: formal calculus (through the theory of Groebner bases) and geometry (via quiver theory). Groebner bases serve as effective models for computation in algebras of various types. Although the theory of Groebner bases was developed in the second half of the 20th century, many works on computational methods in algebra were published well before the introduction of the modern algebraic language. Since then, new algorithms have been developed and the theory itself has greatly expanded. In comparison, diagrammatic methods in representation theory are relatively new, with the quiver varieties only being introduced - with big impact - in the 1990s. Divided into two parts, the book first discusses the theory of Groebner bases in their commutative and noncommutative contexts, with a focus on algorithmic aspects and applications of Groebner bases to analysis on systems of partial differential equations, effective analysis on rings of differential operators, and homological algebra. It then introduces representations of quivers, quiver varieties and their applications to the moduli spaces of meromorphic connections on the complex projective line. While no particular reader background is assumed, the book is intended for graduate students in mathematics, engineering and related fields, as well as researchers and scholars.

This volume is the first ever collection devoted to the field of proof-theoretic semantics. Contributions address topics including the systematics of introduction and elimination rules and proofs of normalization, the categorial characterization of deductions, the relation between Heyting's and Gentzen's approaches to meaning, knowability paradoxes, proof-theoretic foundations of set theory, Dummett's justification of logical laws, Kreisel's theory of constructions, paradoxical reasoning, and the defence of model theory. The field of proof-theoretic semantics has existed for almost 50 years, but the term itself was proposed by Schroeder-Heister in the 1980s. Proof-theoretic semantics explains the meaning of linguistic expressions in general and of logical constants in particular in terms of the notion of proof. This volume emerges from presentations at the Second International Conference on Proof-Theoretic Semantics in Tubingen in 2013, where contributing authors were asked to provide a self-contained description and analysis of a significant research question in this area. The contributions are representative of the field and should be of interest to logicians, philosophers, and mathematicians alike.

The philosophy of computer science is concerned with issues that arise from reflection upon the nature and practice of the discipline of computer science. This book presents an approach to the subject that is centered upon the notion of computational artefact. It provides an analysis of the things of computer science as technical artefacts. Seeing them in this way enables the application of the analytical tools and concepts from the philosophy of technology to the technical artefacts of computer science. With this conceptual framework the author examines some of the central philosophical concerns of computer science including the foundations of semantics, the logical role of specification, the nature of correctness, computational ontology and abstraction, formal methods, computational epistemology and explanation, the methodology of computer science, and the nature of computation. The book will be of value to philosophers and computer scientists.

Problems books are popular with instructors and students alike, as well as among general readers. The key to this book is the many alternative solutions to single problems. Mathematics educators, secondary mathematics teachers, and university instructors will find the book interesting and useful.

The theory of sets, described in the preface to this book as 'Georg Cantor's magnificent theory' was first developed in the 1870s, and was recognised as one of the most important new branches of mathematical science. W. H. Young and his wife Grace Chisholm Young wrote this book, published in 1906, as a 'simple presentation'; but they warn that it is effectively a work in progress: the writing 'has necessarily involved attempts to extend the frontier of existing knowledge, and to fill in gaps which broke the connexion between isolated parts of the subject.' The Young's were a dynamic force in mathematical research: William had been Grace's tutor at Girton College; she was subsequently the first woman to be awarded a Ph. D by the University of G ttingen. Cantor himself said of the book: 'It is a pleasure for me to see with what diligence, skill and success you have worked.'

"Knot theory is a fascinating mathematical subject, with multiple links to theoretical physics. This enyclopedia is filled with valuable information on a rich and fascinating subject." - Ed Witten, Recipient of the Fields Medal "I spent a pleasant afternoon perusing the Encyclopedia of Knot Theory. It's a comprehensive compilation of clear introductions to both classical and very modern developments in the field. It will be a terrific resource for the accomplished researcher, and will also be an excellent way to lure students, both graduate and undergraduate, into the field." - Abigail Thompson, Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Davis Knot theory has proven to be a fascinating area of mathematical research, dating back about 150 years. Encyclopedia of Knot Theory provides short, interconnected articles on a variety of active areas in knot theory, and includes beautiful pictures, deep mathematical connections, and critical applications. Many of the articles in this book are accessible to undergraduates who are working on research or taking an advanced undergraduate course in knot theory. More advanced articles will be useful to graduate students working on a related thesis topic, to researchers in another area of topology who are interested in current results in knot theory, and to scientists who study the topology and geometry of biopolymers. Features Provides material that is useful and accessible to undergraduates, postgraduates, and full-time researchers Topics discussed provide an excellent catalyst for students to explore meaningful research and gain confidence and commitment to pursuing advanced degrees Edited and contributed by top researchers in the field of knot theory

This book focuses on the game-theoretical semantics and epistemic logic of Jaakko Hintikka. Hintikka was a prodigious and esteemed philosopher and logician, and his death in August 2015 was a huge loss to the philosophical community. This book, whose chapters have been in preparation for several years, is dedicated to the work of Jaako Hintikka, and to his memory. This edited volume consists of 23 contributions from leading logicians and philosophers, who discuss themes that span across the entire range of Hintikka's career. Semantic Representationalism, Logical Dialogues, Knowledge and Epistemic logic are among some of the topics covered in this book's chapters. The book should appeal to students, scholars and teachers who wish to explore the philosophy of Jaako Hintikka.

Mathematical Puzzle Tales from Mount Olympus uses fascinating tales from Greek Mythology as the background for introducing mathematics puzzles to the general public. A background in high school mathematics will be ample preparation for using this book, and it should appeal to anyone who enjoys puzzles and recreational mathematics. Features: Combines the arts and science, and emphasizes the fact that mathematics straddles both domains. Great resource for students preparing for mathematics competitions, and the trainers of such students.

This book examines the philosophical conception of abductive reasoning as developed by Charles S. Peirce, the founder of American pragmatism. It explores the historical and systematic connections of Peirce's original ideas and debates about their interpretations. Abduction is understood in a broad sense which covers the discovery and pursuit of hypotheses and inference to the best explanation. The analysis presents fresh insights into this notion of reasoning, which derives from effects to causes or from surprising observations to explanatory theories. The author outlines some logical and AI approaches to abduction as well as studies various kinds of inverse problems in astronomy, physics, medicine, biology, and human sciences to provide examples of retroductions and abductions. The discussion covers also everyday examples with the implication of this notion in detective stories, one of Peirce's own favorite themes. The author uses Bayesian probabilities to argue that explanatory abduction is a method of confirmation. He uses his own account of truth approximation to reformulate abduction as inference which leads to the truthlikeness of its conclusion. This allows a powerful abductive defense of scientific realism. This up-to-date survey and defense of the Peircean view of abduction may very well help researchers, students, and philosophers better understand the logic of truth-seeking.

This book gathers the proceedings of the conference "Cultures of Mathematics and Logic," held in Guangzhou, China. The event was the third in a series of interdisciplinary, international conferences emphasizing the cultural components of philosophy of mathematics and logic. It brought together researchers from many disciplines whose work sheds new light on the diversity of mathematical and logical cultures and practices. In this context, the cultural diversity can be diachronical (different cultures in different historical periods), geographical (different cultures in different regions), or sociological in nature.

This book outlines a vast array of techniques and methods regarding model categories, without focussing on the intricacies of the proofs. Quillen model categories are a fundamental tool for the understanding of homotopy theory. While many introductions to model categories fall back on the same handful of canonical examples, the present book highlights a large, self-contained collection of other examples which appear throughout the literature. In particular, it collects a highly scattered literature into a single volume. The book is aimed at anyone who uses, or is interested in using, model categories to study homotopy theory. It is written in such a way that it can be used as a reference guide for those who are already experts in the field. However, it can also be used as an introduction to the theory for novices.

We humans are collectively driven by a powerful - yet not fully explained - instinct to understand. We would like to see everything established, proven, laid bare. The more important an issue, the more we desire to see it clarified, stripped of all secrets, all shades of gray. What could be more important than to understand the Universe and ourselves as a part of it? To find a window onto our origin and our destiny? This book examines how far our modern cosmological theories - with their sometimes audacious models, such as inflation, cyclic histories, quantum creation, parallel universes - can take us towards answering these questions. Can such theories lead us to ultimate truths, leaving nothing unexplained? Last, but not least, Heller addresses the thorny problem of why and whether we should expect to find theories with all-encompassing explicative power.

This volume presents the main results of the 4th International Conference on Multivariate Approximation, which was held at Witten-Bommerholz, September 24-29, 2000. Nineteen selected, peer-reviewed contributions cover recent topics in constructive approximation on varieties, approximation by solutions of partial differential equations, application of Riesz bases and frames, multiwavelets and subdivision.
Features and Topics:
interpolation and approximation on compact sets, kergin interpolation
error asymptotics
radial basis functions
energy minimizing configurations on the sphere
quadrature and cubature formulae
harmonic functions near a zero
blending functions
frames and approximation of inverse frame operators
The book is an essential resource for researchers and graduates in applied mathematics, computer science and geophysics who are interested in the state-of-the-art developments in multivariate approximation.

The book draws on Prof. Perkowitz's career as successful researcher, teacher, and writer and his broad interests to give him unique insights into how science and scientists connect with general culture and society. The book is especially strong in its coverage of science and art, and science in film. Illustrations from Hollywood films and independent and experimental films increase the book's appeal. The book's mix of varied topics in science and technology, and of short and long pieces written in accessible style, will appeal to general readers.

Professor Atiyah is one of the greatest living mathematicians and is well known throughout the mathematical world. He is a recipient of the Fields Medal, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize, and is still at the peak of his career. His huge number of published papers, focusing on the areas of algebraic geometry and topology, have here been collected into six volumes, divided thematically for easy reference by individuals interested in a particular subject. From 1977 onwards his interest moved in the direction of gauge theories and the interaction between geometry and physics.

One of the greatest mathematicians in the world, Michael Atiyah has earned numerous honors, including a Fields Medal, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize. While the focus of his work has been in the areas of algebraic geometry and topology, he has also participated in research with theoretical physicists. For the first time, these volumes bring together Atiyah's collected papers--both monographs and collaborative works-- including those dealing with mathematical education and current topics of research such as K-theory and gauge theory. The volumes are organized thematically. They will be of great interest to research mathematicians, theoretical physicists, and graduate students in these areas.

This book presents a new nominalistic philosophy of mathematics: semantic conventionalism. Its central thesis is that mathematics should be founded on the human ability to create language - and specifically, the ability to institute conventions for the truth conditions of sentences. This philosophical stance leads to an alternative way of practicing mathematics: instead of "building" objects out of sets, a mathematician should introduce new syntactical sentence types, together with their truth conditions, as he or she develops a theory. Semantic conventionalism is justified first through criticism of Cantorian set theory, intuitionism, logicism, and predicativism; then on its own terms; and finally, exemplified by a detailed reconstruction of arithmetic and real analysis. Also included is a simple solution to the liar paradox and the other paradoxes that have traditionally been recognized as semantic. And since it is argued that mathematics is semantics, this solution also applies to Russell's paradox and the other mathematical paradoxes of self-reference. In addition to philosophers who care about the metaphysics and epistemology of mathematics or the paradoxes of self-reference, this book should appeal to mathematicians interested in alternative approaches.

The International Biometric Society (IBS) was formed at the First International Biometric Conference at Woods Hole on September 6, 1947. The History of the International Biometric Society presents a deep dive into the voluminous archival records, with primary focus on IBS's first fifty years. It contains numerous photos and extracts from the archival materials, and features many photos of important leaders who served IBS across the decades. Features: Describes events leading up to and at Woods Hole on September 6, 1947 that led to the formation of IBS Outlines key markers that shaped IBS after the 1947 formation through to the modern day Describes the regional and national group structure, and the formation of regions and national groups Describes events surrounding the key scientific journal of IBS, Biometrics, including the transfer of ownership to IBS, content, editors, policies, management, and importance Describes the other key IBS publications - Biometric Bulletin, Journal of Agricultural Biological and Environmental Statistics, and regional publications Provides details of International Biometric Conferences and key early symposia Describes IBS constitution and by-laws processes, and the evolution of business arrangements Provides a record of international officers, including regional presidents, national group secretaries, journal editors, and the locations of meetings Includes a gallery of international Presidents, and a gallery of Secretaries and Treasurers The History of the International Biometric Society will appeal to anyone interested in the activities of our statistical and biometrical forebearers. The focus is on issues and events that engaged the attention of the officers of IBS. Some of these records are riveting, some entertaining, some intriguing, and some colorful. Some of the issues covered were difficult to handle, but even these often resulted in changes that benefited IBS.

This book is a comprehensive examination of the conception, perception, performance, and composition of time in music across time and culture. It surveys the literature of time in mathematics, philosophy, psychology, music theory, and somatic studies (medicine and disability studies) and looks ahead through original research in performance, composition, psychology, and education. It is the first monograph solely devoted to the theory of construction of musical time since Kramer in 1988, with new insights, mathematical precision, and an expansive global and historical context. The mathematical methods applied for the construction of musical time are totally new. They relate to category theory (projective limits) and the mathematical theory of gestures. These methods and results extend the music theory of time but also apply to the applied performative understanding of making music. In addition, it is the very first approach to a constructive theory of time, deduced from the recent theory of musical gestures and their categories. Making Musical Time is intended for a wide audience of scholars with interest in music. These include mathematicians, music theorists, (ethno)musicologists, music psychologists / educators / therapists, music performers, philosophers of music, audiologists, and acousticians.

Decision Theory An Introduction to Dynamic Programming and Sequential Decisions John Bather University of Sussex, UK Mathematical induction, and its use in solving optimization problems, is a topic of great interest with many applications. It enables us to study multistage decision problems by proceeding backwards in time, using a method called dynamic programming. All the techniques needed to solve the various problems are explained, and the author's fluent style will leave the reader with an avid interest in the subject.
* Tailored to the needs of students of optimization and decision theory
* Written in a lucid style with numerous examples and applications
* Coverage of deterministic models: maximizing utilities, directed networks, shortest paths, critical path analysis, scheduling and convexity
* Coverage of stochastic models: stochastic dynamic programming, optimal stopping problems and other special topics
* Coverage of advanced topics: Markov decision processes, minimizing expected costs, policy improvements and problems with unknown statistical parameters
* Contains exercises at the end of each chapter, with hints in an appendix
Aimed primarily at students of mathematics and statistics, the lucid text will also appeal to engineering and science students and those working in the areas of optimization and operations research.

This monograph provides a modern introduction to the theory of quantales. First coined by C.J. Mulvey in 1986, quantales have since developed into a significant topic at the crossroads of algebra and logic, of notable interest to theoretical computer science. This book recasts the subject within the powerful framework of categorical algebra, showcasing its versatility through applications to C*- and MV-algebras, fuzzy sets and automata. With exercises and historical remarks at the end of each chapter, this self-contained book provides readers with a valuable source of references and hints for future research. This book will appeal to researchers across mathematics and computer science with an interest in category theory, lattice theory, and many-valued logic.

In his Master Plan Cai Chen (1167-1230) created an original divination manual based on the Yijing and keyed it to an intricate series of 81 matrixes with the properties of "magic squares." Previously unrecognized, Cai's work is a milestone in the history of mathematics, and, in introducing it, this book dramatically expands our understanding of the Chinese number theory practiced by the "Image and Number" school within Confucian philosophy. Thinkers of that leaning devised graphic arrays of the binary figures called "trigrams" and "hexagrams" in the Yijing as a way of exploring the relationship between the random draws of divination and the classic's readings. Cai adapted this perspective to his 81 matrix series, which he saw as tracing the recurring temporal cycles of the natural world. The architecture of the matrix series is echoed in the language of his divination texts, which he called "number names"-hence, the book's title. This book will appeal to those interested in philosophy, the history of science and mathematics, and Chinese intellectual history. The divination text has significant literary as well as philosophical dimensions, and its audience lies both among specialists in these fields and with a general readership interested in recreational mathematics and topics like divination, Taiji, and Fengshui.

The International Biometric Society (IBS) was formed at the First International Biometric Conference at Woods Hole on September 6, 1947. The History of the International Biometric Society presents a deep dive into the voluminous archival records, with primary focus on IBS's first fifty years. It contains numerous photos and extracts from the archival materials, and features many photos of important leaders who served IBS across the decades. Features: Describes events leading up to and at Woods Hole on September 6, 1947 that led to the formation of IBS Outlines key markers that shaped IBS after the 1947 formation through to the modern day Describes the regional and national group structure, and the formation of regions and national groups Describes events surrounding the key scientific journal of IBS, Biometrics, including the transfer of ownership to IBS, content, editors, policies, management, and importance Describes the other key IBS publications - Biometric Bulletin, Journal of Agricultural Biological and Environmental Statistics, and regional publications Provides details of International Biometric Conferences and key early symposia Describes IBS constitution and by-laws processes, and the evolution of business arrangements Provides a record of international officers, including regional presidents, national group secretaries, journal editors, and the locations of meetings Includes a gallery of international Presidents, and a gallery of Secretaries and Treasurers The History of the International Biometric Society will appeal to anyone interested in the activities of our statistical and biometrical forebearers. The focus is on issues and events that engaged the attention of the officers of IBS. Some of these records are riveting, some entertaining, some intriguing, and some colorful. Some of the issues covered were difficult to handle, but even these often resulted in changes that benefited IBS.

Discusses in detail a World Formula, which is the unification of the greatest theories in physics, namely quantum theory and Einstein's general theory Demystifies David Hilbert's World Formula by simplifying the complex math involved in it Explains why nobody had realized Hilbert's immortal stroke of genius As a "Theory of Everything" approach, it automatically provides just the most holistic tools for each and every optimization, decision-making or solution-finding problem there can possibly be-be it in physics, social science, medicine, socioeconomy and politics, real or artificial intelligence or, rather generally, philosophy