A Lost Mathematician, Takeo Nakasawa

A Lost Mathematician, Takeo Nakasawa
Author: Hirokazu Nishimura
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2009-04-21
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3764385731

Matroid theory was invented in the middle of the 1930s by two mathematicians independently, namely, Hassler Whitney in the USA and Takeo Nakasawa in Japan. Whitney became famous, but Nakasawa remained anonymous until two decades ago. He left only four papers to the mathematical community, all of them written in the middle of the 1930s. It was a bad time to have lived in a country that had become as eccentric as possible. Just as Nazism became more and more flamboyant in Europe in the 1930s, Japan became more and more esoteric and fanatical in the same time period. This book explains the little that is known about Nakasawa’s personal life in a Japan that had, among other failures, lost control over its military. This book contains his four papers in German and their English translations as well as some extended commentary on the history of Japan during those years. The book also contains 14 photos of him or his family. Although the veil of mystery surrounding Nakasawa’s life has only been partially lifted, the work presented in this book speaks eloquently of a tragic loss to the mathematical community.

A Lost Mathematician, Takeo Nakasawa

A Lost Mathematician, Takeo Nakasawa
Author: Hirokazu Nishimura
Publisher: Birkhäuser
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2009-08-29
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9783764394615

Matroid theory was invented in the middle of the 1930s by two mathematicians independently, namely, Hassler Whitney in the USA and Takeo Nakasawa in Japan. Whitney became famous, but Nakasawa remained anonymous until two decades ago. He left only four papers to the mathematical community, all of them written in the middle of the 1930s. It was a bad time to have lived in a country that had become as eccentric as possible. Just as Nazism became more and more flamboyant in Europe in the 1930s, Japan became more and more esoteric and fanatical in the same time period. This book explains the little that is known about Nakasawa’s personal life in a Japan that had, among other failures, lost control over its military. This book contains his four papers in German and their English translations as well as some extended commentary on the history of Japan during those years. The book also contains 14 photos of him or his family. Although the veil of mystery surrounding Nakasawa’s life has only been partially lifted, the work presented in this book speaks eloquently of a tragic loss to the mathematical community.

Combinatorial Mathematics

Combinatorial Mathematics
Author: Douglas B. West
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 990
Release: 2020-07-16
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1107058589

This is the most readable and thorough graduate textbook and reference for combinatorics, covering enumeration, graphs, sets, and methods.

Duality in 19th and 20th Century Mathematical Thinking

Duality in 19th and 20th Century Mathematical Thinking
Author: Ralf Krömer
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 962
Release: 2024
Genre: Electronic books
ISBN: 3031597974

This volume brings together scholars across various domains of the history and philosophy of mathematics, investigating duality as a multi-faceted phenomenon. Encompassing both systematic analysis and historical examination, the book endeavors to elucidate the status, roles, and dynamics of duality within the realms of 19th and 20th-century mathematics. Eschewing a priori notions, the contributors embrace the diverse interpretations and manifestations of duality, thus presenting a nuanced and comprehensive perspective on this intricate subject. Spanning a broad spectrum of mathematical topics and historical periods, the book uses detailed case studies to investigate the different forms in which duality appeared and still appears in mathematics, to study their respective histories, and to analyze interactions between the different forms of duality. The chapters inquire into questions such as the contextual occurrences of duality in mathematics, the influence of chosen forms of representation, the impact of investigations of duality on mathematical practices, and the historical interconnections among various instances of duality. Together, they aim to answer a core question: Is there such a thing as duality in mathematics, or are there just several things called by the same name and similar in some respect? What emerges is that duality can be considered as a basic structure of mathematical thinking, thereby opening new horizons for the research on the history and the philosophy of mathematics and the reflection on mathematics in general. The volume will appeal not only to experts in the discipline but also to advanced students of mathematics, history, and philosophy intrigued by the complexities of this captivating subject matter.

Optimization by GRASP

Optimization by GRASP
Author: Mauricio G.C. Resende
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2016-10-26
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1493965301

This is the first book to cover GRASP (Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedures), a metaheuristic that has enjoyed wide success in practice with a broad range of applications to real-world combinatorial optimization problems. The state-of-the-art coverage and carefully crafted pedagogical style lends this book highly accessible as an introductory text not only to GRASP, but also to combinatorial optimization, greedy algorithms, local search, and path-relinking, as well as to heuristics and metaheuristics, in general. The focus is on algorithmic and computational aspects of applied optimization with GRASP with emphasis given to the end-user, providing sufficient information on the broad spectrum of advances in applied optimization with GRASP. For the more advanced reader, chapters on hybridization with path-relinking and parallel and continuous GRASP present these topics in a clear and concise fashion. Additionally, the book offers a very complete annotated bibliography of GRASP and combinatorial optimization. For the practitioner who needs to solve combinatorial optimization problems, the book provides a chapter with four case studies and implementable templates for all algorithms covered in the text. This book, with its excellent overview of GRASP, will appeal to researchers and practitioners of combinatorial optimization who have a need to find optimal or near optimal solutions to hard combinatorial optimization problems.

Applied Graph Theory: An Introduction With Graph Optimization And Algebraic Graph Theory

Applied Graph Theory: An Introduction With Graph Optimization And Algebraic Graph Theory
Author: Christopher H Griffin
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2023-08-08
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 981127312X

This book serves as an introduction to graph theory and its applications. It is intended for a senior undergraduate course in graph theory but is also appropriate for beginning graduate students in science or engineering. The book presents a rigorous (proof-based) introduction to graph theory while also discussing applications of the results for solving real-world problems of interest. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 covers the combinatorial aspects of graph theory including a discussion of common vocabulary, a discussion of vertex and edge cuts, Eulerian tours, Hamiltonian paths and a characterization of trees. This leads to Part 2, which discusses common combinatorial optimization problems. Spanning trees, shortest path problems and matroids are all discussed, as are maximum flow problems. Part 2 ends with a discussion of graph coloring and a proof of the NP-completeness of the coloring problem. Part 3 introduces the reader to algebraic graph theory, and focuses on Markov chains, centrality computation (e.g., eigenvector centrality and page rank), as well as spectral graph clustering and the graph Laplacian. Part 4 contains additional material on linear programming, which is used to provide an alternative analysis of the maximum flow problem. Two appendices containing prerequisite material on linear algebra and probability theory are also provided.

Development Of Mathematics Between The World Wars, The: Case Studies, Examples And Analyses

Development Of Mathematics Between The World Wars, The: Case Studies, Examples And Analyses
Author: Martina Becvarova
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 623
Release: 2021-05-14
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1786349329

The Development of Mathematics Between the World Wars traces the transformation of scientific life within mathematical communities during the interwar period in Central and Eastern Europe, specifically in Germany, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Throughout the book, in-depth mathematical analyses and examples are included for the benefit of the reader.World War I heavily affected academic life. In European countries, many talented researchers and students were killed in action and scientific activities were halted to resume only in the postwar years. However, this inhibition turned out to be a catalyst for the birth of a new generation of mathematicians, for the emergence of new ideas and theories and for the surprising creation of new and outstanding scientific schools.The final four chapters are not restricted to Central and Eastern Europe and deal with the development of mathematics between World War I and World War II. After describing the general state of mathematics at the end of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century, three case studies dealing with selected mathematical disciplines are presented (set theory, potential theory, combinatorics), in a way accessible to a broad audience of mathematicians as well as historians of mathematics.

The Dragon and the Dazzle

The Dragon and the Dazzle
Author: Marco Pellitteri
Publisher: Tunué
Total Pages: 734
Release: 2010
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 8889613890

"In the worldwide circulation of the products of cultural industries, an important role is played by Japanese popular culture in European contexts. Marco Pellitteri shows that the contact between Japanese pop culture and European youth publics occurred during two phases. By use of metaphor, the author calls them the Dragon and the Dazzle. The first took place between 1975 and 1995, the second from 1996 to today. They can be distinguished by the modalities of circulation and consumption/re-elaboration of Japanese themes and products in the most receptive countries: Italy, France, Spain, Germany and, across the ocean, the United States. During these two phases, several themes have been perceived, in Europe, as rising from Japan's social and mediatic systems. Among them, this book examines the most apparent from a European point of view: the author names them machine, infant, and mutation, visible mostly through manga, anime, videogames, and toys. Together with France, Italy is the European country that in this respect has had the most central role. There, Japanese imagination has been acknowledged not only by young people, but also by politicians, television programmers, the general public, educators, comics and cartoons authors. The growing influence of Japanese pop culture, connected to the appreciation of its manga, anime, toys, and videogames, also urges political and mediologic questions linked to the identity/ies of Japan as they are understood--wrongly or rightly--in Europe and the West, and to the increasingly important role of Japan in international relations."--Back cover

The Formation of Science in Japan

The Formation of Science in Japan
Author: James R. Bartholomew
Publisher:
Total Pages: 371
Release: 1989
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780300055801

Bartholomew (history, Ohio State), focusing on the years 1868-1921, shows how the cultural background of Japanese feudalism combined with selective borrowing of American and European achievements to create a tradition of domestic scientific research. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR