Contemporary Trends In Algebraic Geometry And Algebraic Topology

The Wei-Liang Chow and Kuo-Tsai Chen Memorial Conference was proposed and held by Prof S S Chern in Nankai Institute of Mathematics. It was devoted to memorializing those two outstanding and original Chinese mathematicians who had made significant contributions to algebraic geometry and algebraic topology, respectively. It also provided a forum for leading mathematicians to expound and discuss their views on new ideas in these fields, as well as trends in 21st Century mathematics. About 100 mathematicians participated in the conference, including Sir Michael Atiyah, Jacob Palis, Phillip Griffiths, David Eisenbud, Philippe Tondeur, Yujiro Kawamata, Tian Gang, etc.This invaluable volume contains the selected papers presented at the conference. The topics include canonical maps of Gorenstein 3-folds, fundamental groups of algebraic curves, Chen's interated integrals, algebraic fiber spaces, and others.

The Wei-Liang Chow and Kuo-Tsai Chen Memorial Conference was proposed and held by Prof S S Chern in Nankai Institute of Mathematics. It was devoted to memorializing those two outstanding and original Chinese mathematicians who had made significant contributions to algebraic geometry and algebraic topology, respectively. It also provided a forum for leading mathematicians to expound and discuss their views on new ideas in these fields, as well as trends in 21st Century mathematics. About 100 mathematicians participated in the conference, including Sir Michael Atiyah, Jacob Palis, Phillip Griffiths, David Eisenbud, Philippe Tondeur, Yujiro Kawamata, Tian Gang, etc.This invaluable volume contains the selected papers presented at the conference. The topics include canonical maps of Gorenstein 3-folds, fundamental groups of algebraic curves, Chen''s interated integrals, algebraic fiber spaces, and others.

Articles examine the contributions of the great mathematician J. M. Hoene-Wronski. Although much of his work was dismissed during his lifetime, it is now recognized that his work offers valuable insight into the nature of mathematics. The book begins with elementary-level discussions and ends with discussions of current research. Most of the material has never been published before, offering fresh perspectives on Hoene-Wronski’s contributions.

The academic year 1996-97 was designated as a special year in Algebraic Topology at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). In addition to guest lecturers and special courses, an international conference was held entitled "Current trends in algebraic topology with applications to algebraic geometry and physics". The series of plenary lectures included in this volume indicate the great breadth of the conference and the lively interaction that took place among various areas of mathematics. Original research papers were submitted, and all submissions were refereed to the usual journal standards.

For more than thirty years the senior author has been trying to learn algebraic geometry. In the process he discovered that many of the classic textbooks in algebraic geometry require substantial knowledge of cohomology, homological algebra, and sheaf theory. In an attempt to demystify these abstract concepts and facilitate understanding for a new generation of mathematicians, he along with co-author wrote this book for an audience who is familiar with basic concepts of linear and abstract algebra, but who never has had any exposure to the algebraic geometry or homological algebra. As such this book consists of two parts. The first part gives a crash-course on the homological and cohomological aspects of algebraic topology, with a bias in favor of cohomology. The second part is devoted to presheaves, sheaves, Cech cohomology, derived functors, sheaf cohomology, and spectral sequences. All important concepts are intuitively motivated and the associated proofs of the quintessential theorems are presented in detail rarely found in the standard texts.

The articles in this volume study various cohomological aspects of algebraic varieties: - characteristic classes of singular varieties; - geometry of flag varieties; - cohomological computations for homogeneous spaces; - K-theory of algebraic varieties; - quantum cohomology and Gromov-Witten theory. The main purpose is to give comprehensive introductions to the above topics through a series of "friendly" texts starting from a very elementary level and ending with the discussion of current research. In the articles, the reader will find classical results and methods as well as new ones. Numerous examples will help to understand the mysteries of the cohomological theories presented. The book will be a useful guide to research in the above-mentioned areas. It is adressed to researchers and graduate students in algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, and singularity theory, as well as to mathematicians interested in homogeneous varieties and symmetric functions. Most of the material exposed in the volume has not appeared in books before. Contributors: Paolo Aluffi Michel Brion Anders Skovsted Buch Haibao Duan Ali Ulas Ozgur Kisisel Piotr Pragacz Jörg Schürmann Marek Szyjewski Harry Tamvakis

Central to this collection of papers are new developments in the general theory of localization of spaces. This field has undergone tremendous change of late and is yielding new insight into the mysteries of classical homotopy theory. The present volume comprises the refereed articles submitted at the Conference on Algebraic Topology held in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain, in June 1994. Several comprehensive articles on general localization clarify the basic tools and give a report on the state of the art in the subject matter. The text is therefore accessible not only to the professional mathematician but also to the advanced student.