A Graduate Course In Algebra

as a student." --Book Jacket.

This comprehensive two-volume book deals with algebra, broadly conceived. Volume 1 (Chapters 1–6) comprises material for a first year graduate course in algebra, offering the instructor a number of options in designing such a course. Volume 1, provides as well all essential material that students need to prepare for the qualifying exam in algebra at most American and European universities. Volume 2 (Chapters 7–13) forms the basis for a second year graduate course in topics in algebra. As the table of contents shows, that volume provides ample material accommodating a variety of topics that may be included in a second year course. To facilitate matters for the reader, there is a chart showing the interdependence of the chapters.

Great book! The author's teaching experinece shows in every chapter. --Efim Zelmanov, University of California, San Diego Vinberg has written an algebra book that is excellent, both as a classroom text or for self-study. It is plain that years of teaching abstract algebra have enabled him to say the right thing at the right time. --Irving Kaplansky, MSRI This is a comprehensive text on modern algebra written for advanced undergraduate and basic graduate algebra classes. The book is based on courses taught by the author at the Mechanics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University and at the Mathematical College of the Independent University of Moscow. The unique feature of the book is that it contains almost no technically difficult proofs. Following his point of view on mathematics, the author tried, whenever possible, to replace calculations and difficult deductions with conceptual proofs and to associate geometric images to algebraic objects. Another important feature is that the book presents most of the topics on several levels, allowing the student to move smoothly from initial acquaintance to thorough study and deeper understanding of the subject. Presented are basic topics in algebra such as algebraic structures, linear algebra, polynomials, groups, as well as more advanced topics like affine and projective spaces, tensor algebra, Galois theory, Lie groups, associative algebras and their representations. Some applications of linear algebra and group theory to physics are discussed. Written with extreme care and supplied with more than 200 exercises and 70 figures, the book is also an excellent text for independent study.

Realizing the specific needs of first-year graduate students, this reference allows readers to grasp and master fundamental concepts in abstract algebra-establishing a clear understanding of basic linear algebra and number, group, and commutative ring theory and progressing to sophisticated discussions on Galois and Sylow theory, the structure of abelian groups, the Jordan canonical form, and linear transformations and their matrix representations.

'I like the authorsâ (TM) taste in footnotes, what with their frequent emphasis on history, i.e. the minutiae of the lives of many mathematicians appearing in these pages. Their remarks add a particular dimension of fun and pleasure to what I think is a very good book. Itâ (TM)s pitched at the right level, it does a lot of serious stuff in preparation for what is coming the studentsâ (TM) way in the future, and it does it well.'MAA ReviewsThis comprehensive two-volume book deals with algebra, broadly conceived. Volume 1 (Chapters 1-6) comprises material for a first year graduate course in algebra, offering the instructor a number of options in designing such a course. Volume 1, provides as well all essential material that students need to prepare for the qualifying exam in algebra at most American and European universities. Volume 2 (Chapters 7-13) forms the basis for a second year graduate course in topics in algebra. As the table of contents shows, that volume provides ample material accommodating a variety of topics that may be included in a second year course. To facilitate matters for the reader, there is a chart showing the interdependence of the chapters.

This book is based largely on courses that the author taught at the Feinberg Graduate School of the Weizmann Institute. It conveys in a user-friendly way the basic and advanced techniques of linear algebra from the point of view of a working analyst. The techniques are illustrated by a wide sample of applications and examples that are chosen to highlight the tools of the trade. In short, this is material that the author has found to be useful in his own research and wishes that he had been exposed to as a graduate student. Roughly the first quarter of the book reviews the contents of a basic course in linear algebra, plus a little. The remaining chapters treat singular value decompositions, convexity, special classes of matrices, projections, assorted algorithms, and a number of applications. The applications are drawn from vector calculus, numerical analysis, control theory, complex analysis, convex optimization, and functional analysis. In particular, fixed point theorems, extremal problems, best approximations, matrix equations, zero location and eigenvalue location problems, matrices with nonnegative entries, and reproducing kernels are discussed. This new edition differs significantly from the second edition in both content and style. It includes a number of topics that did not appear in the earlier edition and excludes some that did. Moreover, most of the material that has been adapted from the earlier edition has been extensively rewritten and reorganized.

This book is an expanded text for a graduate course in commutative algebra, focusing on the algebraic underpinnings of algebraic geometry and of number theory. Accordingly, the theory of affine algebras is featured, treated both directly and via the theory of Noetherian and Artinian modules, and the theory of graded algebras is included to provide the foundation for projective varieties. Major topics include the theory of modules over a principal ideal domain, and its applicationsto matrix theory (including the Jordan decomposition), the Galois theory of field extensions, transcendence degree, the prime spectrum of an algebra, localization, and the classical theory of Noetherian and Artinian rings. Later chapters include some algebraic theory of elliptic curves (featuring theMordell-Weil theorem) and valuation theory, including local fields. One feature of the book is an extension of the text through a series of appendices. This permits the inclusion of more advanced material, such as transcendental field extensions, the discriminant and resultant, the theory of Dedekind domains, and basic theorems of rings of algebraic integers. An extended appendix on derivations includes the Jacobian conjecture and Makar-Limanov's theory of locally nilpotent derivations. Grobnerbases can be found in another appendix. Exercises provide a further extension of the text. The book can be used both as a textbook and as a reference source.

Linear algebra is a living, active branch of mathematics which is central to almost all other areas of mathematics, both pure and applied, as well as to computer science, to the physical, biological, and social sciences, and to engineering. It encompasses an extensive corpus of theoretical results as well as a large and rapidly-growing body of computational techniques. Unfortunately, in the past decade, the content of linear algebra courses required to complete an undergraduate degree in mathematics has been depleted to the extent that they fail to provide a sufficient theoretical or computational background. Students are not only less able to formulate or even follow mathematical proofs, they are also less able to understand the mathematics of the numerical algorithms they need for applications. Certainly, the material presented in the average undergraduate course is insufficient for graduate study. This book is intended to fill the gap which has developed by providing enough theoretical and computational material to allow the advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate student to overcome this deficiency and be able to work independently or in advanced courses. The book is intended to be used either as a self-study guide, a textbook for a course in advanced linear algebra, or as a reference book. It is also designed to prepare a student for the linear algebra portion of prelim exams or PhD qualifying exams. The volume is self-contained to the extent that it does not assume any previous formal knowledge of linear algebra, though the reader is assumed to have been exposed, at least informally, to some of the basic ideas and techniques, such as manipulation of small matrices and the solution of small systems of linear equations over the real numbers. More importantly, it assumes a seriousness of purpose, considerable motivation, and a modicum of mathematical sophistication on the part of the reader. In the latest edition, new major theorems have been added, as well as many new examples. There are over 130 additional exercises and many of the previous exercises have been revised or rewritten. In addition, a large number of additional biographical notes and thumbnail portraits of mathematicians have been included.