Kurt Hensel (1861-1941) discovered the p-adic numbers around the turn of the century. These exotic numbers (or so they appeared at first) are now well-established in the mathematical world and used more and more by physicists as well. This book offers a self-contained presentation of basic p-adic analysis. The author is especially interested in the analytical topics in this field. Some of the features which are not treated in other introductory p-adic analysis texts are topological models of p-adic spaces inside Euclidean space, a construction of spherically complete fields, a p-adic mean value theorem and some consequences, a special case of Hazewinkel's functional equation lemma, a remainder formula for the Mahler expansion, and most importantly a treatment of analytic elements.

Discovered at the turn of the 20th century, p-adic numbers are frequently used by mathematicians and physicists. This text is a self-contained presentation of basic p-adic analysis with a focus on analytic topics. It offers many features rarely treated in introductory p-adic texts such as topological models of p-adic spaces inside Euclidian space, a special case of Hazewinkel 's functional equation lemma, and a treatment of analytic elements.

"This wonderful little book by Alain Robert should bring about a complete change in the learning of NSA. The author has accomplished a rare feat in the educational literature. He has succeeded in writing a book which is simple and brilliant, deep and witty, short and far-ranging. This is mathematics teaching at its best."-J.-M. Lévy-Leblond, European Journal of Physics

Brief and readable, this introduction to nonstandard analysis is based on the axiomatic IST (internal set theory) approach. The two-part treatment starts with a clear, rigorous exposition of theory, followed by self-contained chapters on applications. Exercises appear at the conclusion of each chapter, with hints in addition to full solutions. Theoretical topics include idealization, standardization and transfer, real numbers and numerical functions, continuity, differentiability, and integration. Chapters involving applications cover invariant means, approximation of functions, differential equations, perturbation of a Green function, and an invariant subspaces problem. 1988 ed.