The prototypical multilinear operation is multiplication. Indeed, every multilinear mapping can be factored through a tensor product. Apart from its intrinsic interest, the tensor product is of fundamental importance in a variety of disciplines, ranging from matrix inequalities and group representation theory, to the combinatorics of symmetric functions, and all these subjects appear in this book. Another attraction of multilinear algebra lies in its power to unify such seemingly diverse topics. This is done in the final chapter by means of the rational representations of the full linear group. Arising as characters of these representations, the classical Schur polynomials are one of the keys to unification. Prerequisites for the book are minimized by self-contained introductions in the early chapters. Throughout the text, some of the easier proofs are left to the exercises, and some of the more difficult ones to the references.

Shortly after defeating his last imperial rival in the Battle of Chrysopolis, Constantine set out to consolidate his supremacy by co-opting a tenacious religious movement that Diocletian had tried and failed to stamp out 30 years earlier. Summoning its leaders to the relatively remote setting of Nicaea, he offered them a seat at the imperial table in exchange for subscribing to a common framework of fundamental principles, i.e., a share of temporal power in return for embracing spiritual conformity. Seventeen centuries later, humankind is still living with the consequences of that bargain for every major denomination of organized Christianity adheres to the same two holy books, one inherited from Judaism and the other from the Nicene Council of 325. Theology flowed from the decrees of the Council with the inevitability of lava from a fissure in the ground. Nine decades on, the flow cooled and hardened into the actual 'rock' upon which modern organized Christianity is built. Those ninety years are the backdrop for Caesar's Temple, a daring historical novel about the life and turbulent times of feminist icon Hypatia and her father Theon. On one level, Caesar's Temple is an account of how 'the literal word of God' came to be set in stone; of how the Christ's gospel of love was transformed into what it is today; and of how an intolerant state religion crushed secular Hellenism and expedited the fall of western civilization into 800 years of darkness. On another, it is a tale of humankind's persistent quest to push back boundaries, test limits, and understand its place in the cosmos. Above all, it is an epic story of one of history's most remarkable father-daughter pairs.