The fourth and final volume in this comprehensive set presents the maximum principle as a wide ranging solution to nonclassical, variational problems. This one mathematical method can be applied in a variety of situations, including linear equations with variable coefficients, optimal processes with delay, and the jump condition. As with the three preceding volumes, all the material contained with the 42 sections of this volume is made easily accessible by way of numerous examples, both concrete and abstract in nature.

General topology is the domain ofmathematics devoted to the investigation of the concepts of continuity and passage to a limit at their natural level of generality. The most basic concepts of general topology, that of a topological space and a continuous map, were introduced by Hausdorffin 1914. Oneofthecentralproblemsoftopologyisthedeterminationandinvestigation of topological invariants; that is, properties ofspaces which are preserved under homeomorphisms. Topological invariants need not be numbers. Connectedness, compactness, andmetrizability, forexample, arenon-numericaltopologicalinvariants.Dimen sional invariants, on the otherhand, areexamplesofnumericalinvariants which take integervalues on specific topological spaces. Part II ofthis book is devoted to them. Topological invariants which take values in the cardinal numbers play an especially important role, providing the raw material for many useful coin" putations. Weight, density, character, and Suslin number are invariants ofthis type. Certain classes of topological spaces are defined in terms of topological in variants. Particularly important examples include the metrizable spaces, spaces with a countable base, compact spaces, Tikhonov spaces, Polish spaces, Cech complete spaces and the symmetrizable spaces."