"This Odyssey of an Octogenarian" is certainly different. From 1920, when at age 5, my first disastrous adventure occurred until the present time, I have experienced moment after moment of unexpected surprises, of traumatic panics, of impossible coincidences and finally of idiotic decisions I made which some how have always turned into very happy memories.

I know that most books are written for monetary profit. At ninety years of age, and with out any close relatives, my writing for profit is kind of ridiculous. Of the two other choices, I hope this effort will be construed as a labor of love rather than as an ego trip. In any event I have arranged for any possible royalties to be donated to Bakersfield and other American worth while endeavors.

So please read and enjoy!

In any event I have arranged for any possible royalties to be set aside and donated directly to the Katrina-Rita disaster fund.

Topological solitons occur in many nonlinear classical field theories. They are stable, particle-like objects, with finite mass and a smooth structure. Examples are monopoles and Skyrmions, Ginzburg-Landau vortices and sigma-model lumps, and Yang-Mills instantons. This book is a comprehensive survey of static topological solitons and their dynamical interactions. Particular emphasis is placed on the solitons which satisfy first-order Bogomolny equations. For these, the soliton dynamics can be investigated by finding the geodesics on the moduli space of static multi-soliton solutions. Remarkable scattering processes can be understood this way. The book starts with an introduction to classical field theory, and a survey of several mathematical techniques useful for understanding many types of topological soliton. Subsequent chapters explore key examples of solitons in one, two, three and four dimensions. The final chapter discusses the unstable sphaleron solutions which exist in several field theories.

Topological solitons occur in many nonlinear classical field theories. They are stable, particle-like objects, with finite mass and a smooth structure. Examples are monopoles and Skyrmions, Ginzburg-Landau vortices and sigma-model lumps, and Yang-Mills instantons. This book is a comprehensive survey of static topological solitons and their dynamical interactions. Particular emphasis is placed on the solitons which satisfy first-order Bogomolny equations. For these, the soliton dynamics can be investigated by finding the geodesics on the moduli space of static multi-soliton solutions. Remarkable scattering processes can be understood this way. The book starts with an introduction to classical field theory, and a survey of several mathematical techniques useful for understanding many types of topological soliton. Subsequent chapters explore key examples of solitons in one, two, three and four dimensions. The final chapter discusses the unstable sphaleron solutions which exist in several field theories.