This book, now in its second edition, introduces the singularity analysis of differential and difference equations via the Painleve test and shows how Painleve analysis provides a powerful algorithmic approach to building explicit solutions to nonlinear ordinary and partial differential equations. It is illustrated with integrable equations such as the nonlinear Schroedinger equation, the Korteweg-de Vries equation, Henon-Heiles type Hamiltonians, and numerous physically relevant examples such as the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, the Kolmogorov-Petrovski-Piskunov equation, and mainly the cubic and quintic Ginzburg-Landau equations. Extensively revised, updated, and expanded, this new edition includes: recent insights from Nevanlinna theory and analysis on both the cubic and quintic Ginzburg-Landau equations; a close look at physical problems involving the sixth Painleve function; and an overview of new results since the book's original publication with special focus on finite difference equations. The book features tutorials, appendices, and comprehensive references, and will appeal to graduate students and researchers in both mathematics and the physical sciences.

The Centre de recherches mathCmatiques (CRM) was created in 1968 by the Universite de Montreal to promote research in the mathematical sci- ences. It is now a national institute that hosts several groups, holds special theme years, summer schools, workshops, postdoctoral program. The focus of its scientific activities ranges from pure to applied mathematics, and includes satistics, theoretical computer science, mathematical methods in biology and life sciences, and mathematical and theoretical physics. The CRM also promotes collaboration between mathematicians and industry. It is subsidized by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Fonds FCAR od the Province of Quebec, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and has private endowments. Current ac- tivities, fellowships, and annual reports can be found on the CRM web page at http://www . CRM. UMontreal. CAl. The CRM Series in Mathematical Physics will publish monographs, lec- ture notes, and proceedings base on research pursued and events held at the Centre de recherches mathematiques. Yvan Saint-Aubin Montreal Preface The subject of this three-week school was the explicit integration, that is, analytical as opposed to numerical, of all kinds of nonlinear differential equations (ordinary differential, partial differential, finite difference). The result of such integration is ideally the "general solution," but there are numerous physical systems for which only a particular solution is accessible, for instance the solitary wave of the equation of Kuramoto and Sivashinsky in turbulence.

This book, now in its second edition, introduces the singularity analysis of differential and difference equations via the Painleve test and shows how Painleve analysis provides a powerful algorithmic approach to building explicit solutions to nonlinear ordinary and partial differential equations. It is illustrated with integrable equations such as the nonlinear Schroedinger equation, the Korteweg-de Vries equation, Henon-Heiles type Hamiltonians, and numerous physically relevant examples such as the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, the Kolmogorov-Petrovski-Piskunov equation, and mainly the cubic and quintic Ginzburg-Landau equations. Extensively revised, updated, and expanded, this new edition includes: recent insights from Nevanlinna theory and analysis on both the cubic and quintic Ginzburg-Landau equations; a close look at physical problems involving the sixth Painleve function; and an overview of new results since the book's original publication with special focus on finite difference equations. The book features tutorials, appendices, and comprehensive references, and will appeal to graduate students and researchers in both mathematics and the physical sciences.

Born in 1960 in Newark, New Jersey, Roberts Counts grew up poor in the projects. Incarcerated at twenty, he began to read everything he could find from Shakespeare and Malcolm X to Einstein and Robert Frost. Gradually, he taught himself to write poetry. His poems, signed Ishmael Shamsid-din-as he was known for almost thirty years-deal with ghetto violence, the goodness and beauty of nature, and love as a source of redemption. With wit and lyric energy, Counts shows us what it takes to resist bitterness and nurture hope. "These are poems of struggle: with language, in the first instance; with the mechanisms that spin the universe; with the gods and goddesses of love; but most of all with a recalcitrant self which refuses worn and easy paths." -Paul Lauter, Editor, The Heath Anthology of American Literature