From the Introduction: " Marston Morse was born in 1892, so that he was 33 years old when in 1925 his paper Relations between the critical points of a real-valued function of n independent variables appeared in the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. Thus Morse grew to maturity just at the time when the subject of Analysis Situs was being shaped by such masters as Poincare, Veblen, L. E. J. Brouwer, G. D. Birkhoff, Lefschetz and Alexander, and it was Morse's genius and destiny to discover one of the most beautiful and far-reaching relations between this fledgling and Analysis; a relation which is now known as Morse Theory. In retrospect all great ideas take on a certain simplicity and inevitability, partly because they shape the whole subsequent development of the subject. And so to us, today, Morse Theory seems natural and inevitable. This whole flight of ideas was of course acclaimed by the mathematical World...it eventually earned him practically every honor of the mathematical community, over twenty honorary degrees, the National Science Medal, the Legion of Honor of France, ..."

This book builds upon the revolutionary discovery made in 1974 that when one passes from function f to a function J of paths joining two points A1?A1 the connectivities R1 of the domain of f can be replaced by connectivities R1 over Q, common to the pathwise components of a basic Frechet space of classes of equivalent curves joining A1 to A1. The connectivities R1, termed "Frechet numbers," are proved independent of the choice of A1 ? A1, and of a replacement of Mn by any differential manifold homeomorphic to Mn. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book builds upon the revolutionary discovery made in 1974 that when one passes from function f to a function J of paths joining two points A1?A1 the connectivities R1 of the domain of f can be replaced by connectivities R1 over Q, common to the pathwise components of a basic Frechet space of classes of equivalent curves joining A1 to A1. The connectivities R1, termed "Frechet numbers," are proved independent of the choice of A1 ? A1, and of a replacement of Mn by any differential manifold homeomorphic to Mn. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The description for this book, Topological Methods in the Theory of Functions of a Complex Variable. (AM-15), will be forthcoming.

The description for this book, Contributions to the Theory of Riemann Surfaces. (AM-30), will be forthcoming.

American Mathematical Society, Colloquium Publications, V18.

American Mathematical Society, Colloquium Publications, V18.