DOCSLIB.ORG

Differential Geometry (University of California, Los Angeles, July 1990) 53 James A

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Differential Geometry (University of California, Los Angeles, July 1990) 53 James A http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/pspum/054.3 Recent Titles in This Series 54 Robert Greene and S. T. Yau, editors, Differential geometry (University of California, Los Angeles, July 1990) 53 James A. Carlson, C. Herbert Clemens, and David R. Morrison, editors, Complex geometry and Lie theory (Sundance, Utah, May 1989) 52 Eric Bedford, John P. D'Angelo, Robert E. Greene, and Steven G. Krantz, editors, Several complex variables and complex geometry (University of California, Santa Cruz, July 1989) 51 William B. Arveson and Ronald G. Douglas, editors, Operator theory/operator algebras and applications (University of New Hampshire, July 1988) 50 James Glimm, John Impagliazzo, and Isadore Singer, editors, The legacy of John von Neumann (Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, May/June 1988) 49 Robert C. Gunning and Leon Ehrenpreis, editors, Theta functions - Bowdoin 1987 (Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, July 1987) 48 R. O. Wells, Jr., editor, The mathematical heritage of Hermann Weyl (Duke University, Durham, May 1987) 47 Paul Fong, editor, The Areata conference on representations of finite groups (Humboldt State University, Areata, California, July 1986) 46 Spencer J. Bloch, editor, Algebraic geometry - Bowdoin 1985 (Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, July 1985) 45 Felix E. Browder, editor, Nonlinear functional analysis and its applications (University of California, Berkeley, July 1983) 44 William K. Allard and Frederick J. Almgren, Jr., editors, Geometric measure theory and the calculus of variations (Humboldt State University, Areata, California, July/August 1984) 43 Francois Treves, editor, Pseudodifferential operators and applications (University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, April 1984) 42 Anil Nerode and Richard A. Shore, editors, Recursion theory (Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, June/July 1982) 41 Yum-Tong Siu, editor, Complex analysis of several variables (Madison, Wisconsin, April 1982) 40 Peter Orlik, editor, Singularities (Humboldt State University, Areata, California, July/ August 1981) 39 Felix E. Browder, editor, The mathematical heritage of Henri Poincare (Indiana University, Bloomington, April 1980) 38 Richard V. Kadison, editor, Operator algebras and applications (Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, July/August 1980) 37 Bruce Cooperstein and Geoffrey Mason, editors, The Santa Cruz conference on finite groups (University of California, Santa Cruz, June/July 1979) 36 Robert Osserman and Alan Weinstein, editors, Geometry of the Laplace operator (University of Hawaii, Honolulu, March 1979) 35 Guido Weiss and Stephen Wainger, editors, Harmonic analysis in Euclidean spaces (Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, July 1978) 34 D. K. Ray-Chaudhuri, editor, Relations between combinatorics and other parts of mathematics (Ohio State University, Columbus, March 1978) 33 A Borel and W. Casselman, editors, Automorphic forms, representations and L-f unctions (Oregon State University, Corvallis, July/August 1977) 32 R. James Milgram, editor, Algebraic and geometric topology (Stanford University, Stanford, California, August 1976) 31 Joseph L. Doob, editor, Probability (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, March 1976) (Continued in the back of this publication) Differential Geometry: Riemannian Geometry Proceedings of Symposia in PURE MATHEMATICS Volume 54, Part 3 Differential Geometry: Riemannian Geometry Robert Greene S. T. Yau Editors z((l*0S^iw American Mathematical Society Sll u h n n rj £ Mm * 3\\ ILliilil In Providence, Rhode Island PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER RESEARCH INSTITUTE ON DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY HELD AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA JULY 8-28, 1990 with the support from the National Science Foundation Grant DMS-8913610. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 53A10, 49F20, 58E20, 58E12, 58G11 (Part 1) 81E13, 53C80, 53B50, 32C10, 53C15, 58F05, 83C75 (Part 2) 53C20, 53C40, 58C40, 58G25, 58F07, 58F11, 58F17 (Part 3). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Riemannian geometry/Robert Greene and S. T. Yau, editors. p. cm.—(Proceedings of symposia in pure mathematics; v. 54, pt. 3) (Differential ge• ometry; pt. 3) "Proceedings of a Summer Research Institute on Differential Geometry, held at the Uni• versity of California, Los Angeles, July 8-28, 1990"—T.p. verso. ISBN 0-8218-1494-X (Part 1) ISBN 0-8218-1495-8 (Part 2) ISBN 0-8218-1496-6 (Part 3) ISBN 0-8218-1493-1 (set) (alk. paper) 1. Geometry, Riemannian—Congresses. I. Greene, Robert Everist, 1943- . II. Yau, Shing- Tung, 1949- . III. Summer Research Institute on Differential Geometry (1990: University of California, Los Angeles) IV. Series. V. Series: Differential geometry; pt. 3. QA641.D3833 1993 pt. 3 516.3'6s—dc20 92-34056 [516.3'73] CIP COPYING AND REPRINTING. Individual readers of this publication, and nonprofit li• braries acting for them, are permitted to make fair use of the material, such as to copy an article for use in teaching or research. Permission is granted to quote brief passages from this publication in reviews, provided the customary acknowledgment of the source is given. Republication, systematic copying, or multiple reproduction of any material in this publi• cation (including abstracts) is permitted only under license from the American Mathematical Society. Requests for such permission should be addressed to the Manager of Editorial Services, American Mathematical Society, P.O. Box 6248, Providence, Rhode Island 02940-6248. The appearance of the code on the first page of an article in this book indicates the copyright owner's consent for copying beyond that permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law, provided that the fee of $1.00 plus $.25 per page for each copy be paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 27 Congress Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970. This consent does not extend to other kinds of copying, such as copying for general distribution, for advertising or promotional purposes, for creating new collective works, or for resale. Copyright ©1993 by the American Mathematical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. The American Mathematical Society retains all rights except those granted to the United States Government. The paper used in this book is acid-free and falls within the guidelines established to ensure permanence and durability. @ This publication was typeset using AMS-TgX, the American Mathematical Society's TgX macro system. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 98 97 96 95 94 93 Dedication. To Professor S.-S. Chern, in appreciation of his formative influence on modern differential geometry. Contents (* denotes one-hour survey lectures) Preface xxi PART 1 Open Problems in Geometry* SHING TUNG YAU 1 Questions and Answers about Area-Minimizing Surfaces and Geometric Measure Theory* FRED ALMGREN 29 On the Geometrical Origin and the Solutions of a Degenerate Monge-Ampere Equation DAVID BAO AND TUDOR RATIU 55 Differential Geometry and the Design of Gradient Algorithms* ROGER W. BROCKETT 69 Spectral Geometry of F-Manifolds and its Application to Harmonic Maps YUAN-JEN CHIANG 93 Constructing Harmonic Maps into the Hyperbolic Space HYEONG IN CHOI AND ANDREJS TREIBERGS 101 Spherical Minimal Immersions of Spherical Space Forms DENNIS DETURCK AND WOLFGANG ZILLER 111 Banach Manifolds of Solutions to Nonlinear Partial Differential Equa• tions, and Relations with Finite-Dimensional Manifolds JOSEF DORFMEISTER 121 Some New Harmonic Maps ROBERT HARDT 141 x CONTENTS Existence of Unstable Minimal Surfaces in Manifolds with Homology and Applications to Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces JOEL HASS, JON T. PITTS, AND J. H. RUBINSTEIN 147 Closed Minimal Submanifolds in the Spheres* WU-YIHSIANG 163 Local and Global Behaviour of Hypersurfaces Moving by Mean Curvature* GERHARD HUISKEN 17 5 The Level-Set Flow on a Manifold TOM ILMANEN 193 Unstable Solutions of Two-Dimensional Geometric Variational Problems* JURGEN JOST 205 Harmonic Maps and Superrigidity JURGEN JOST AND SHING TUNG YAU 245 Harmonic Functions of Polynomial Growth on Complete Manifolds ATSUSHI KASUE 281 The Structure of Constant Mean Curvature Embeddings in Euclidean Three Space NICK KOREVAAR AND ROB KUSNER 291 Uniformization of Spherical CR Manifolds and the CR Yamabe Problem ZHONGYUAN LI 299 The Theory of Harmonic Functions and Its Relation to Geometry* PETER LI 307 Harmonic Maps with Prescribed Singularities YAN YAN LI AND GANG TIAN 317 Some Recent Results on Harmonic Maps to Spheres* FANG HUA LIN 327 The Geometry, Topology, and Existence of Periodic Minimal Surfaces* WILLIAM H. MEEKS III 333 CONTENTS xi Soap Films and Mathematics FRANK MORGAN 375 Uniform Boundary Regularity Estimates for Minima of Certain Quadratic Functional LIBINH. Mou 381 Self-similar Solutions and Asymptotic Behavior of Flows of Nonpara- metric Surfaces Driven by Gauss or Mean Curvature VLADIMIR OLIKER 389 A Report on Geometric Quantization P. L. ROBINSON 403 Motion of Curves by Crystalline Curvature, Including Triple Junctions and Boundary Points JEAN E. TAYLOR 417 Recent Progress in Submanifold Geometry* CHUU-LIAN TERNG 439 Constant Mean Curvature Surfaces in the Heisenberg Group PER TOMTER 485 Complete Immersions of Constant Mean Curvature* HENRY C. WENTE 497 Banach Manifolds of Minimal Surfaces in the 4-Sphere HONGYOU Wu 513 On the Isolatedness for the Solutions of Plateau's Problem STEPHEN ZHENG 541 PART 2 Invariants of Gauss Maps of Theta Divisors MALCOLM ADAMS, CLINT MCCRORY, TED SHIFRIN, AND ROBERT VARLEY 1 On Characteristics of Hypersurfaces in Symplectic Manifolds AUGUSTIN
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Analytic Geometry
    Guide Study Georgia End-Of-Course Tests Georgia ANALYTIC GEOMETRY TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................5 HOW TO USE THE STUDY GUIDE ................................................................................6 OVERVIEW OF THE EOCT .........................................................................................8 PREPARING FOR THE EOCT ......................................................................................9 Study Skills ........................................................................................................9 Time Management .....................................................................................10 Organization ...............................................................................................10 Active Participation ...................................................................................11 Test-Taking Strategies .....................................................................................11 Suggested Strategies to Prepare for the EOCT ..........................................12 Suggested Strategies the Day before the EOCT ........................................13 Suggested Strategies the Morning of the EOCT ........................................13 Top 10 Suggested Strategies during the EOCT .........................................14 TEST CONTENT ........................................................................................................15
    [Show full text]
  • Geometry C12 Review Find the Volume of the Figures. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6
    Geometry C12 Review 6. Find the volume of the figures. 1. PREAP: DO NOT USE 5.2 km as the apothem! 7. 2. 3. 8. 9. 4. 10. 5. 11. 16. 17. 12. 18. 13. 14. 19. 15. 20. 21. A sphere has a volume of 7776π in3. What is the radius 33. Two prisms are similar. The ratio of their volumes is of the sphere? 8:27. The surface area of the smaller prism is 72 in2. Find the surface area of the larger prism. 22a. A sphere has a volume of 36π cm3. What is the radius and diameter of the sphere? 22b. A sphere has a volume of 45 ft3. What is the 34. The prisms are similar. approximate radius of the sphere? a. What is the scale factor? 23. The scale factor (ratio of sides) of two similar solids is b. What is the ratio of surface 3:7. What are the ratios of their surface areas and area? volumes? c. What is the ratio of volume? d. Find the volume of the 24. The scale factor of two similar solids is 12:5. What are smaller prism. the ratios of their surface areas and volumes? 35. The prisms are similar. 25. The scale factor of two similar solids is 6:11. What are a. What is the scale factor? the ratios of their surface areas and volumes? b. What is the ratio of surface area? 26. The ratio of the volumes of two similar solids is c. What is the ratio of 343:2197. What is the scale factor (ratio of sides)? volume? d.
    [Show full text]
  • Riemannian Geometry and the General Theory of Relativity
    University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1967 Riemannian geometry and the general theory of relativity Marie McBride Vanisko The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Vanisko, Marie McBride, "Riemannian geometry and the general theory of relativity" (1967). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 8075. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/8075 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. p m TH3 OmERAl THEORY OF RELATIVITY By Marie McBride Vanisko B.A., Carroll College, 1965 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts UNIVERSITY OF MOKT/JTA 1967 Approved by: Chairman, Board of Examiners D e a ^ Graduante school V AUG 8 1967, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. V W Number: EP38876 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduotion is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missir^ pages, these will be noted. Also, if matedal had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT Oi*MMtion neiitNna UMi EP38876 Published ProQuest LLQ (2013).
    [Show full text]
  • Riemannian Geometry Learning for Disease Progression Modelling Maxime Louis, Raphäel Couronné, Igor Koval, Benjamin Charlier, Stanley Durrleman
    Riemannian geometry learning for disease progression modelling Maxime Louis, Raphäel Couronné, Igor Koval, Benjamin Charlier, Stanley Durrleman To cite this version: Maxime Louis, Raphäel Couronné, Igor Koval, Benjamin Charlier, Stanley Durrleman. Riemannian geometry learning for disease progression modelling. 2019. hal-02079820v2 HAL Id: hal-02079820 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02079820v2 Preprint submitted on 17 Apr 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Riemannian geometry learning for disease progression modelling Maxime Louis1;2, Rapha¨elCouronn´e1;2, Igor Koval1;2, Benjamin Charlier1;3, and Stanley Durrleman1;2 1 Sorbonne Universit´es,UPMC Univ Paris 06, Inserm, CNRS, Institut du cerveau et de la moelle (ICM) 2 Inria Paris, Aramis project-team, 75013, Paris, France 3 Institut Montpelli`erainAlexander Grothendieck, CNRS, Univ. Montpellier Abstract. The analysis of longitudinal trajectories is a longstanding problem in medical imaging which is often tackled in the context of Riemannian geometry: the set of observations is assumed to lie on an a priori known Riemannian manifold. When dealing with high-dimensional or complex data, it is in general not possible to design a Riemannian geometry of relevance. In this paper, we perform Riemannian manifold learning in association with the statistical task of longitudinal trajectory analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Richard Hunt 11 Two Dogs
    Fall 2009 In this Issue... New William Chauvenet Lecturer Welcome New Chauvenet! 1 Kabe Moen Current Research Grants 1 I received my Ph.D. Letter from the Chair 2 From the University of Prof. Wilson Retires 3 Kansas in 2009, under the supervision of Ro- Faculty Conferences 4 dolfo Torres and Carlos Honoring Prof. Weiss 5 Pérez. My research Graduate Studies 6 interests are in classi- cal harmonic analysis, Undergraduate Studies 7 especially weighted in- Robert Osserman 8 equalities and wavelets. Math Circle 8 Recently, I have been Kabe & Andrea Moen Math Library Closing 9 working on more modern techniques in harmonic analy- sis such as bellman functions and heat fl ows. When I am Sam Lachterman 9-10 not doing math I enjoy playing tennis, running, swimming, Budapest Semesters 10 cycling and spending time with my wife, Andrea, and our Memoriam: Richard Hunt 11 two dogs. We are expecting our fi rst child in August and are looking forward to moving back to Missouri (our Facutly and Staff Listing 11 home state) to become part of the Department of Math- ematics at Washington University. Current Research Grants Principle Investigator Grant Title Funding Organization Quo-Shin Chi DUPIN HYPERSURFACES AND THE KUIPER CONJECTURE NSF Gary Jensen PROBLEMS IN LIE SPHERE GEOMETRY NSF Steven Krantz COMPLEX GEOMETRY AT THE BANACH CENTER IN WARSAW NSF Mohan Kumar VECTOR BUNDLES ON HYPERSURFACES National Security Agency NSF Nan Lin STATISTICAL AGGREGATION IN MASSIVE DATA ENVIRONMENTS NSF John McCarthy OPERATOR THEORY & COMPLEX GEOMETRY NSF Rachel Roberts FIBRED
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Riemannian Geometry with Applications to Mechanics and Relativity
    An Introduction to Riemannian Geometry with Applications to Mechanics and Relativity Leonor Godinho and Jos´eNat´ario Lisbon, 2004 Contents Chapter 1. Differentiable Manifolds 3 1. Topological Manifolds 3 2. Differentiable Manifolds 9 3. Differentiable Maps 13 4. Tangent Space 15 5. Immersions and Embeddings 22 6. Vector Fields 26 7. Lie Groups 33 8. Orientability 45 9. Manifolds with Boundary 48 10. Notes on Chapter 1 51 Chapter 2. Differential Forms 57 1. Tensors 57 2. Tensor Fields 64 3. Differential Forms 66 4. Integration on Manifolds 72 5. Stokes Theorem 75 6. Orientation and Volume Forms 78 7. Notes on Chapter 2 80 Chapter 3. Riemannian Manifolds 87 1. Riemannian Manifolds 87 2. Affine Connections 94 3. Levi-Civita Connection 98 4. Minimizing Properties of Geodesics 104 5. Hopf-Rinow Theorem 111 6. Notes on Chapter 3 114 Chapter 4. Curvature 115 1. Curvature 115 2. Cartan’s Structure Equations 122 3. Gauss-Bonnet Theorem 131 4. Manifolds of Constant Curvature 137 5. Isometric Immersions 144 6. Notes on Chapter 4 150 1 2 CONTENTS Chapter 5. Geometric Mechanics 151 1. Mechanical Systems 151 2. Holonomic Constraints 160 3. Rigid Body 164 4. Non-Holonomic Constraints 177 5. Lagrangian Mechanics 186 6. Hamiltonian Mechanics 194 7. Completely Integrable Systems 203 8. Notes on Chapter 5 209 Chapter 6. Relativity 211 1. Galileo Spacetime 211 2. Special Relativity 213 3. The Cartan Connection 223 4. General Relativity 224 5. The Schwarzschild Solution 229 6. Cosmology 240 7. Causality 245 8. Singularity Theorem 253 9. Notes on Chapter 6 263 Bibliography 265 Index 267 CHAPTER 1 Differentiable Manifolds This chapter introduces the basic notions of differential geometry.
    [Show full text]
  • Riemannian Geometry and Multilinear Tensors with Vector Fields on Manifolds Md
    International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 5, Issue 9, September-2014 157 ISSN 2229-5518 Riemannian Geometry and Multilinear Tensors with Vector Fields on Manifolds Md. Abdul Halim Sajal Saha Md Shafiqul Islam Abstract-In the paper some aspects of Riemannian manifolds, pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, Lorentz manifolds, Riemannian metrics, affine connections, parallel transport, curvature tensors, torsion tensors, killing vector fields, conformal killing vector fields are focused. The purpose of this paper is to develop the theory of manifolds equipped with Riemannian metric. I have developed some theorems on torsion and Riemannian curvature tensors using affine connection. A Theorem 1.20 named “Fundamental Theorem of Pseudo-Riemannian Geometry” has been established on Riemannian geometry using tensors with metric. The main tools used in the theorem of pseudo Riemannian are tensors fields defined on a Riemannian manifold. Keywords: Riemannian manifolds, pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, Lorentz manifolds, Riemannian metrics, affine connections, parallel transport, curvature tensors, torsion tensors, killing vector fields, conformal killing vector fields. —————————— —————————— I. Introduction (c) { } is a family of open sets which covers , that is, 푖 = . Riemannian manifold is a pair ( , g) consisting of smooth 푈 푀 manifold and Riemannian metric g. A manifold may carry a (d) ⋃ is푈 푖푖 a homeomorphism푀 from onto an open subset of 푀 ′ further structure if it is endowed with a metric tensor, which is a 푖 . 푖 푖 휑 푈 푈 natural generation푀 of the inner product between two vectors in 푛 ℝ to an arbitrary manifold. Riemannian metrics, affine (e) Given and such that , the map = connections,푛 parallel transport, curvature tensors, torsion tensors, ( ( ) killingℝ vector fields and conformal killing vector fields play from푖 푗 ) to 푖 푗 is infinitely푖푗 −1 푈 푈 푈 ∩ 푈 ≠ ∅ 휓 important role to develop the theorem of Riemannian manifolds.
    [Show full text]
  • Multidisciplinary Design Project Engineering Dictionary Version 0.0.2
    Multidisciplinary Design Project Engineering Dictionary Version 0.0.2 February 15, 2006 . DRAFT Cambridge-MIT Institute Multidisciplinary Design Project This Dictionary/Glossary of Engineering terms has been compiled to compliment the work developed as part of the Multi-disciplinary Design Project (MDP), which is a programme to develop teaching material and kits to aid the running of mechtronics projects in Universities and Schools. The project is being carried out with support from the Cambridge-MIT Institute undergraduate teaching programe. For more information about the project please visit the MDP website at http://www-mdp.eng.cam.ac.uk or contact Dr. Peter Long Prof. Alex Slocum Cambridge University Engineering Department Massachusetts Institute of Technology Trumpington Street, 77 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge. Cambridge MA 02139-4307 CB2 1PZ. USA e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] tel: +44 (0) 1223 332779 tel: +1 617 253 0012 For information about the CMI initiative please see Cambridge-MIT Institute website :- http://www.cambridge-mit.org CMI CMI, University of Cambridge Massachusetts Institute of Technology 10 Miller’s Yard, 77 Massachusetts Ave. Mill Lane, Cambridge MA 02139-4307 Cambridge. CB2 1RQ. USA tel: +44 (0) 1223 327207 tel. +1 617 253 7732 fax: +44 (0) 1223 765891 fax. +1 617 258 8539 . DRAFT 2 CMI-MDP Programme 1 Introduction This dictionary/glossary has not been developed as a definative work but as a useful reference book for engi- neering students to search when looking for the meaning of a word/phrase. It has been compiled from a number of existing glossaries together with a number of local additions.
    [Show full text]
  • Math, Physics, and Calabi–Yau Manifolds
    Math, Physics, and Calabi–Yau Manifolds Shing-Tung Yau Harvard University October 2011 Introduction I’d like to talk about how mathematics and physics can come together to the benefit of both fields, particularly in the case of Calabi-Yau spaces and string theory. This happens to be the subject of the new book I coauthored, THE SHAPE OF INNER SPACE It also tells some of my own story and a bit of the history of geometry as well. 2 In that spirit, I’m going to back up and talk about my personal introduction to geometry and how I ended up spending much of my career working at the interface between math and physics. Along the way, I hope to give people a sense of how mathematicians think and approach the world. I also want people to realize that mathematics does not have to be a wholly abstract discipline, disconnected from everyday phenomena, but is instead crucial to our understanding of the physical world. 3 There are several major contributions of mathematicians to fundamental physics in 20th century: 1. Poincar´eand Minkowski contribution to special relativity. (The book of Pais on the biography of Einstein explained this clearly.) 2. Contributions of Grossmann and Hilbert to general relativity: Marcel Grossmann (1878-1936) was a classmate with Einstein from 1898 to 1900. he was professor of geometry at ETH, Switzerland at 1907. In 1912, Einstein came to ETH to be professor where they started to work together. Grossmann suggested tensor calculus, as was proposed by Elwin Bruno Christoffel in 1868 (Crelle journal) and developed by Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita (1901).
    [Show full text]
  • Kepler's Laws, Newton's Laws, and the Search for New Planets
    Integre Technical Publishing Co., Inc. American Mathematical Monthly 108:9 July 12, 2001 2:22 p.m. osserman.tex page 813 Kepler’s Laws, Newton’s Laws, and the Search for New Planets Robert Osserman Introduction. One of the high points of elementary calculus is the derivation of Ke- pler’s empirically deduced laws of planetary motion from Newton’s Law of Gravity and his second law of motion. However, the standard treatment of the subject in calcu- lus books is flawed for at least three reasons that I think are important. First, Newton’s Laws are used to derive a differential equation for the displacement vector from the Sun to a planet; say the Earth. Then it is shown that the displacement vector lies in a plane, and if the base point is translated to the origin, the endpoint traces out an ellipse. This is said to confirm Kepler’s first law, that the planets orbit the sun in an elliptical path, with the sun at one focus. However, the alert student may notice that the identical argument for the displacement vector in the opposite direction would show that the Sun orbits the Earth in an ellipse, which, it turns out, is very close to a circle with the Earth at the center. That would seem to provide aid and comfort to the Church’s rejection of Galileo’s claim that his heliocentric view had more validity than their geocentric one. Second, by placing the sun at the origin, the impression is given that either the sun is fixed, or else, that one may choose coordinates attached to a moving body, inertial or not.
    [Show full text]
  • MORSE-BOTT HOMOLOGY 1. Introduction 1.1. Overview. Let Cr(F) = {P ∈ M| Df P = 0} Denote the Set of Critical Points of a Smooth
    TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Volume 362, Number 8, August 2010, Pages 3997–4043 S 0002-9947(10)05073-7 Article electronically published on March 23, 2010 MORSE-BOTT HOMOLOGY AUGUSTIN BANYAGA AND DAVID E. HURTUBISE Abstract. We give a new proof of the Morse Homology Theorem by con- structing a chain complex associated to a Morse-Bott-Smale function that reduces to the Morse-Smale-Witten chain complex when the function is Morse- Smale and to the chain complex of smooth singular N-cube chains when the function is constant. We show that the homology of the chain complex is independent of the Morse-Bott-Smale function by using compactified moduli spaces of time dependent gradient flow lines to prove a Floer-type continuation theorem. 1. Introduction 1.1. Overview. Let Cr(f)={p ∈ M| df p =0} denote the set of critical points of a smooth function f : M → R on a smooth m-dimensional manifold M. A critical point p ∈ Cr(f) is said to be non-degenerate if and only if df is transverse to the ∗ zero section of T M at p. In local coordinates this is equivalent to the condition 2 that the m × m Hessian matrix ∂ f has rank m at p. If all the critical points ∂xi∂xj of f are non-degenerate, then f is called a Morse function. A Morse function f : M → R on a finite-dimensional compact smooth Riemann- ian manifold (M,g) is called Morse-Smale if all its stable and unstable manifolds intersect transversally. Such a function gives rise to a chain complex (C∗(f),∂∗), called the Morse-Smale-Witten chain complex.
    [Show full text]
  • The Legacy of Norbert Wiener: a Centennial Symposium
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/pspum/060 Selected Titles in This Series 60 David Jerison, I. M. Singer, and Daniel W. Stroock, Editors, The legacy of Norbert Wiener: A centennial symposium (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, October 1994) 59 William Arveson, Thomas Branson, and Irving Segal, Editors, Quantization, nonlinear partial differential equations, and operator algebra (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, June 1994) 58 Bill Jacob and Alex Rosenberg, Editors, K-theory and algebraic geometry: Connections with quadratic forms and division algebras (University of California, Santa Barbara, July 1992) 57 Michael C. Cranston and Mark A. Pinsky, Editors, Stochastic analysis (Cornell University, Ithaca, July 1993) 56 William J. Haboush and Brian J. Parshall, Editors, Algebraic groups and their generalizations (Pennsylvania State University, University Park, July 1991) 55 Uwe Jannsen, Steven L. Kleiman, and Jean-Pierre Serre, Editors, Motives (University of Washington, Seattle, July/August 1991) 54 Robert Greene and S. T. Yau, Editors, Differential geometry (University of California, Los Angeles, July 1990) 53 James A. Carlson, C. Herbert Clemens, and David R. Morrison, Editors, Complex geometry and Lie theory (Sundance, Utah, May 1989) 52 Eric Bedford, John P. D'Angelo, Robert E. Greene, and Steven G. Krantz, Editors, Several complex variables and complex geometry (University of California, Santa Cruz, July 1989) 51 William B. Arveson and Ronald G. Douglas, Editors, Operator theory/operator algebras and applications (University of New Hampshire, July 1988) 50 James Glimm, John Impagliazzo, and Isadore Singer, Editors, The legacy of John von Neumann (Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, May/June 1988) 49 Robert C. Gunning and Leon Ehrenpreis, Editors, Theta functions - Bowdoin 1987 (Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, July 1987) 48 R.
    [Show full text]