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In this book, Pierre de la Harpe provides a concise and engaging introduction to geometric group theory, a new method for studying infinite groups via their intrinsic geometry that has played a major role in mathematics over the past two decades. A recognized expert in the field, de la Harpe adopts a hands-on approach, illustrating key concepts with numerous concrete examples. The first five chapters present basic combinatorial and geometric group theory in a unique and refreshing way, with an emphasis on finitely generated versus finitely presented groups. In the final three chapters, de la Harpe discusses new material on the growth of groups, including a detailed treatment of the "Grigorchuk group." Most sections are followed by exercises and a list of problems and complements, enhancing the book's value for students; problems range from slightly more difficult exercises to open research problems in the field. An extensive list of references directs readers to more advanced results as well as connections with other fields.
A recent paper on subfactors of von Neumann factors has stimulated much research in von Neumann algebras. It was discovered soon after the appearance of this paper that certain algebras which are used there for the analysis of subfactors could also be used to define a new polynomial invariant for links. Recent efforts to understand the fundamental nature of the new link invariants has led to connections with invariant theory, statistical mechanics and quantum theory. In turn, the link invariants, the notion of a quantum group, and the quantum Yang-Baxter equation have had a great impact on the study of subfactors. Our subject is certain algebraic and von Neumann algebraic topics closely related to the original paper. However, in order to promote, in a modest way, the contact between diverse fields of mathematics, we have tried to make this work accessible to the broadest audience. Consequently, this book contains much elementary expository material.
History of Swiss emigration to South Africa, together with genealogies of immigrant descendants.
The theory of hyperbolic groups has its starting point in a fundamental paper by M. Gromov, published in 1987. These are finitely generated groups that share important properties with negatively curved Riemannian manifolds. This monograph is intended to be an introduction to part of Gromov's theory, giving basic definitions, some of the most important examples, various properties of hyperbolic groups, and an application to the construction of infinite torsion groups. The main theme is the relevance of geometric ideas to the understanding of finitely generated groups. In addition to chapters written by the editors, contributions by W. Ballmann, A. Haefliger, E. Salem, R. Strebel, and M. Troyanov are also included. The book will be particularly useful to researchers in combinatorial group theory, Riemannian geometry, and theoretical physics, as well as post-graduate students interested in these fields.
In this book, Pierre de la Harpe provides a concise and engaging introduction to geometric group theory, a new method for studying infinite groups via their intrinsic geometry that has played a major role in mathematics over the past two decades. A recognized expert in the field, de la Harpe adopts a hands-on approach, illustrating key concepts with numerous concrete examples. The first five chapters present basic combinatorial and geometric group theory in a unique and refreshing way, with an emphasis on finitely generated versus finitely presented groups. In the final three chapters, de la Harpe discusses new material on the growth of groups, including a detailed treatment of the "Grigorchuk group." Most sections are followed by exercises and a list of problems and complements, enhancing the book's value for students; problems range from slightly more difficult exercises to open research problems in the field. An extensive list of references directs readers to more advanced results as well as connections with other fields.
The main aim of this book is the study of locally compact groups from a geometric perspective, with an emphasis on appropriate metrics that can be defined on them. The approach has been successful for finitely generated groups and can be favorably extended to locally compact groups. Parts of the book address the coarse geometry of metric spaces, where ``coarse'' refers to that part of geometry concerning properties that can be formulated in terms of large distances only. This point of view is instrumental in studying locally compact groups. Basic results in the subject are exposed with complete proofs; others are stated with appropriate references. Most importantly, the development of the theory is illustrated by numerous examples, including matrix groups with entries in the the field of real or complex numbers, or other locally compact fields such as $p$-adic fields, isometry groups of various metric spaces, and last but not least, discrete groups themselves. The book is aimed at graduate students, advanced undergraduate students, and mathematicians seeking some introduction to coarse geometry and locally compact groups.
A comprehensive introduction to the role of Property (T), with applications to an amazing number of fields within mathematics.
Unitary representations of groups play an important role in many subjects, including number theory, geometry, probability theory, partial differential equations, and quantum mechanics. This monograph focuses on dual spaces associated to a group, which are spaces of building blocks of general unitary representations. Special attention is paid to discrete groups for which the unitary dual, the most common dual space, has proven to be not useful in general and for which other duals spaces have to be considered, such as the primitive dual, the normal quasi-dual, or spaces of characters. The book offers a detailed exposition of these alternative dual spaces and covers the basic facts about unitar...
8. A Matter of Debate: Conceptions of Material Substance in the Scientific Revolution -- 9. War of the Worlds: Cartesian Vortices and Newtonian Gravitation in Eighteenth-Century Astronomy -- 10. Historical Pyrrhonism and Its Discontents -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z
This book provides a detailed exposition of a wide range of topics in geometric group theory, inspired by Gromov’s pivotal work in the 1980s. It includes classical theorems on nilpotent groups and solvable groups, a fundamental study of the growth of groups, a detailed look at asymptotic cones, and a discussion of related subjects including filters and ultrafilters, dimension theory, hyperbolic geometry, amenability, the Burnside problem, and random walks on groups. The results are unified under the common theme of Gromov’s theorem, namely that finitely generated groups of polynomial growth are virtually nilpotent. This beautiful result gave birth to a fascinating new area of research wh...