This book presents a graduate-level course on modern algebra. It can be used as a teaching book – owing to the copious exercises – and as a source book for those who wish to use the major theorems of algebra.The course begins with the basic combinatorial principles of algebra: posets, chain conditions, Galois connections, and dependence theories. Here, the general Jordan–Holder Theorem becomes a theorem on interval measures of certain lower semilattices. This is followed by basic c...

The book gives a detailed account of the development of the theory of algebraic equations, from its origins in ancient times to its completion by Galois in the nineteenth century. The appropriate parts of works by Cardano, Lagrange, Vandermonde, Gauss, Abel, and Galois are reviewed and placed in their historical perspective, with the aim of conveying to the reader a sense of the way in which the theory of algebraic equations has evolved and has led to such basic mathematical notions as 'gr...

Introducing the representation theory of groups and finite dimensional algebras, first studying basic non-commutative ring theory, this book covers the necessary background on elementary homological algebra and representations of groups up to block theory. It further discusses vertices, defect groups, Green and Brauer correspondences and Clifford theory. Whenever possible the statements are presented in a general setting for more general algebras, such as symmetric finite dimensional algeb...

This book provides a detailed and largely self-contained description of various classical and new results on solvability and unsolvability of equations in explicit form. In particular, it offers a complete exposition of the relatively new area of topological Galois theory, initiated by the author. Applications of Galois theory to solvability of algebraic equations by radicals, basics of Picard–Vessiot theory, and Liouville's results on the class of functions representable by quadratures ar...

This second edition covers essentially the same topics as the first. However, the presentation of the material has been extensively revised and improved. In addition, there are two new chapters, one dealing with the fundamental theorem of finitely generated abelian groups and the other a brief introduction to semigroup theory and automata.This book is appropriate for second to fourth year undergraduates. In addition to the material traditionally taught at this level, the book contains seve...

At first sight, finitely generated abelian groups and canonical forms of matrices appear to have little in common. However, reduction to Smith normal form, named after its originator H.J.S.Smith in 1861, is a matrix version of the Euclidean algorithm and is exactly what the theory requires in both cases. Starting with matrices over the integers, Part 1 of this book provides a measured introduction to such groups: two finitely generated abelian groups are isomorphic if and only if their inv...

The first part of this book provides an elementary and self-contained exposition of classical Galois theory and its applications to questions of solvability of algebraic equations in explicit form. The second part describes a surprising analogy between the fundamental theorem of Galois theory and the classification of coverings over a topological space. The third part contains a geometric description of finite algebraic extensions of the field of meromorphic functions on a Riemann surface ...

This monograph provides an introduction to the theory of Clifford algebras, with an emphasis on its connections with the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras. The book starts with a detailed presentation of the main results on symmetric bilinear forms and Clifford algebras. It develops the spin groups and the spin representation, culminating in Cartan’s famous triality automorphism for the group Spin(8). The discussion of enveloping algebras includes a presentation of Petracci’s proof of ...

This manuscript is devoted to classifying the isomorphism classes of the virtually cyclic subgroups of the braid groups of the 2-sphere. As well as enabling us to understand better the global structure of these groups, it marks an important step in the computation of the K-theory of their group rings. The classification itself is somewhat intricate, due to the rich structure of the finite subgroups of these braid groups, and is achieved by an in-depth analysis of their group-theoretical an...

This is the second in a series of three volumes dealing with important topics in algebra. Volume 2 is an introduction to linear algebra (including linear algebra over rings), Galois theory, representation theory, and the theory of group extensions. The section on linear algebra (chapters 1–5) does not require any background material from Algebra 1, except an understanding of set theory. Linear algebra is the most applicable branch of mathematics, and it is essential for students o...

Adopting a new universal algebraic approach, this book explores and consolidates the link between Tarski's classical theory of equidecomposability types monoids, abstract measure theory (in the spirit of Hans Dobbertin's work on monoid-valued measures on Boolean algebras) and the nonstable K-theory of rings. This is done via the study of a monoid invariant, defined on Boolean inverse semigroups, called the type monoid. The new techniques contrast with the currently available topological ap...

This book presents the proceedings of the international conference Analytic Aspects in Convexity, which was held in Rome in October 2016. It offers a collection of selected articles, written by some of the world’s leading experts in the field of Convex Geometry, on recent developments in this area: theory of valuations; geometric inequalities; affine geometry; and curvature measures. The book will be of interest to a broad readership, from those involved in Convex Geometry, to those focusi...