Hermann Weyl 1885 1985

Published for the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich

Hermann Weyl was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. Viewing mathematics as an organic whole rather than a collection of separate subjects, Weyl made profound contributions to a wide range of areas, including analysis, geometry, number theory, Lie groups, and mathematical physics, as well as the philosophy of science and of mathematics. The topics he chose to study, the lines of thought he initiated, and his general perspective on mathematics have proved remarkably fruitful and have formed the basis for some of the best of modern mathematical research. This volume contains the proceedings of the AMS Symposium on the Mathematical Heritage of Hermann Weyl, held in May 1987 at Duke University. In addition to honoring Weyl's great accomplishments in mathematics, the symposium also sought to stimulate the younger generation of mathematicians by highlighting the cohesive nature of modern mathematics as seen from Weyl's ideas. The symposium assembled a brilliant array of speakers and covered a wide range of topics. All of the papers are expository and will appeal to a broad audience of mathematicians, theoretical physicists, and other scientists.

Historical interest and studies of Weyl's role in the interplay between 20th-century mathematics, physics and philosophy have been increasing since the middle 1980s, triggered by different activities at the occasion of the centenary of his birth in 1985, and are far from being exhausted. The present book takes Weyl's "Raum - Zeit - Materie" (Space - Time - Matter) as center of concentration and starting field for a broader look at his work. The contributions in the first part of this volume discuss Weyl's deep involvement in relativity, cosmology and matter theories between the classical unified field theories and quantum physics from the perspective of a creative mind struggling against theories of nature restricted by the view of classical determinism. In the second part of this volume, a broad and detailed introduction is given to Weyl's work in the mathematical sciences in general and in philosophy. It covers the whole range of Weyl's mathematical and physical interests: real analysis, complex function theory and Riemann surfaces, elementary ergodic theory, foundations of mathematics, differential geometry, general relativity, Lie groups, quantum mechanics, and number theory.

Gathering 115 entries written by 101 internationally renowned experts in their fields, the Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought aims at canvassing the current state of knowledge in Whiteheadian scholarship and at identifying promising directions for future investigations through (internal) cross-elucidation and (external) interdisciplinary development. Two kinds of entries are weaved together in order to interpret Whitehead secundum Whitehead and to read him from the vantage point of interdisciplinary and crossdisciplinary research. The “thematic ” entries provide (i) a broad contextualisation of the issue at stake; (ii) a focus on Whitehead's treatment (if any) or of a possible Whiteheadian treatment of the issue; (iii) a history of relevant scholarship; (iv) a personal assessment by the Author. The “biographical ” entries provide (i) a brief vita of the targeted thinker; (ii) a sketch of his/her categories relevant to the Whiteheadian scholarship; (iii) a personal assessment of the actual (or possible) Whiteheadian semantic transfer to or from the thinker.

This book investigates Hermann Weyl’s work on the problem of space from the early 1920s onwards. It presents new material and opens the philosophical problem of space anew, crossing the disciplines of mathematics, history of science and philosophy. With a Kantian starting point Weyl asks: among all the infinitely many conceivable metrical spaces, which one applies to the physical world? In agreement with general relativity, Weyl acknowledges that the metric can quantitatively vary with the physical situation. Despite this freedom, Weyl “deduces”, with group-theoretical technicalities, that there is only one “kind” of legitimate metric. This construction was then decisive for the development of gauge theories. Nevertheless, the question of the foundations of the metric of physical theories is only a piece of a wider epistemological problem. Contributing authors mark out the double trajectory that goes through Weyl’s texts, from natural science to philosophy and conversely, always through the mediation of mathematics. Readers may trace the philosophical tradition to which Weyl refers and by which he is inspired (Kant, Husserl, Fichte, Leibniz, Becker etc.), and explore the mathematical tradition (Riemann, Helmholtz, Lie, Klein) that permitted Weyl to elaborate and solve his mathematical problem of space. Furthermore, this volume analyzes the role of the interlocutors with whom Weyl discussed the nature of physical space (Einstein, Cartan, De Sitter, Schrödinger, Eddington). This volume features the work of top specialists and will appeal to postgraduates and scholars in philosophy, the history of science, mathematics, or physics.

This book retraces the life of the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, analyses his scientific work, and describes the evolution of his thinking. Includes extended account of Pauli'scorrespondence with figures such as Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg and C.G.Jung.