In its traditional form, Clifford analysis provides the function theory for solutions of the Dirac equation. From the beginning, however, the theory was used and applied to problems in other fields of mathematics, numerical analysis, and mathematical physics. recently, the theory has enlarged its scope considerably by incorporating geometrical methods from global analysis on manifolds and methods from representation theory. New, interesting branches of the theory are based on conformally invariant, first-order systems other than the Dirac equation, or systems that are invariant with respect to a group other than the conformal group. This book represents an up-to-date review of Clifford analysis in its present form, its applications, and directions for future research. Readership: Mathematicians and theoretical physicists interested in Clifford analysis itself, or in its applications to other fields.

William Kingdon Clifford published the paper defining his "geometric algebras" in 1878, the year before his death. Clifford algebra is a generalisation to n-dimensional space of quaternions, which Hamilton used to represent scalars and vectors in real three-space: it is also a development of Grassmann's algebra, incorporating in the fundamental relations inner products defined in terms of the metric of the space. It is a strange fact that the Gibbs Heaviside vector techniques came to dominate in scientific and technical literature, while quaternions and Clifford algebras, the true associative algebras of inner-product spaces, were regarded for nearly a century simply as interesting mathematical curiosities. During this period, Pauli, Dirac and Majorana used the algebras which bear their names to describe properties of elementary particles, their spin in particular. It seems likely that none of these eminent mathematical physicists realised that they were using Clifford algebras. A few research workers such as Fueter realised the power of this algebraic scheme, but the subject only began to be appreciated more widely after the publication of Chevalley's book, 'The Algebraic Theory of Spinors' in 1954, and of Marcel Riesz' Maryland Lectures in 1959. Some of the contributors to this volume, Georges Deschamps, Erik Folke Bolinder, Albert Crumeyrolle and David Hestenes were working in this field around that time, and in their turn have persuaded others of the importance of the subject."

William Kingdon Clifford published the paper defining his "geometric algebras" in 1878, the year before his death. Clifford algebra is a generalisation to n-dimensional space of quaternions, which Hamilton used to represent scalars and vectors in real three-space: it is also a development of Grassmann's algebra, incorporating in the fundamental relations inner products defined in terms of the metric of the space. It is a strange fact that the Gibbs Heaviside vector techniques came to dominate in scientific and technical literature, while quaternions and Clifford algebras, the true associative algebras of inner-product spaces, were regarded for nearly a century simply as interesting mathematical curiosities. During this period, Pauli, Dirac and Majorana used the algebras which bear their names to describe properties of elementary particles, their spin in particular. It seems likely that none of these eminent mathematical physicists realised that they were using Clifford algebras. A few research workers such as Fueter realised the power of this algebraic scheme, but the subject only began to be appreciated more widely after the publication of Chevalley's book, 'The Algebraic Theory of Spinors' in 1954, and of Marcel Riesz' Maryland Lectures in 1959. Some of the contributors to this volume, Georges Deschamps, Erik Folke Bolinder, Albert Crumeyrolle and David Hestenes were working in this field around that time, and in their turn have persuaded others of the importance of the subject."

In its traditional form, Clifford analysis provides the function theory for solutions of the Dirac equation. From the beginning, however, the theory was used and applied to problems in other fields of mathematics, numerical analysis, and mathematical physics. recently, the theory has enlarged its scope considerably by incorporating geometrical methods from global analysis on manifolds and methods from representation theory. New, interesting branches of the theory are based on conformally invariant, first-order systems other than the Dirac equation, or systems that are invariant with respect to a group other than the conformal group. This book represents an up-to-date review of Clifford analysis in its present form, its applications, and directions for future research. Readership: Mathematicians and theoretical physicists interested in Clifford analysis itself, or in its applications to other fields.

This book deals with vector algebra and analysis and with their application to three-dimensional geometry and the analysis of fields in three dimensions. While many treatments of the application of vectors have approached the fundamentals of the subject intuitively, assuming some prior knowledge of Euclidean and Cartesian geometry, Professor Chrisholm here bases the subject on the axioms of linear space algebra, which are fundamental to many branches of mathematics. While developing the properties of vectors from axioms, however, he continually emphasizes the geometrical interpretation of vector algebra in order to build up intuitive relations between the algebraic equations and geometrical concepts. Throughout, examples are used to illustrate the theory being developed; several sets of problems are incorporate in each chapter, and outline answers to many of these are given. Written primarily for undergraduate mathematicians in the early part of their courses, this lucidly written book will also appeal to mathematical physicists and to mathematically inclined engineers.