Handbook of Algebra

Handbook of Algebra
Author: M. Hazewinkel
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 637
Release: 2009-07-08
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0080932819

Algebra, as we know it today, consists of many different ideas, concepts and results. A reasonable estimate of the number of these different items would be somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000. Many of these have been named and many more could (and perhaps should) have a name or a convenient designation. Even the nonspecialist is likely to encounter most of these, either somewhere in the literature, disguised as a definition or a theorem or to hear about them and feel the need for more information. If this happens, one should be able to find enough information in this Handbook to judge if it is worthwhile to pursue the quest. In addition to the primary information given in the Handbook, there are references to relevant articles, books or lecture notes to help the reader. An excellent index has been included which is extensive and not limited to definitions, theorems etc. The Handbook of Algebra will publish articles as they are received and thus the reader will find in this third volume articles from twelve different sections. The advantages of this scheme are two-fold: accepted articles will be published quickly and the outline of the Handbook can be allowed to evolve as the various volumes are published. A particularly important function of the Handbook is to provide professional mathematicians working in an area other than their own with sufficient information on the topic in question if and when it is needed.- Thorough and practical source of information - Provides in-depth coverage of new topics in algebra - Includes references to relevant articles, books and lecture notes

Skew Fields

Skew Fields
Author: Paul Moritz Cohn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 522
Release: 1995-07-28
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0521432170

Non-commutative fields (also called skew fields or division rings) have not been studied as thoroughly as their commutative counterparts and most accounts have hitherto been confined to division algebras, that is skew fields finite-dimensional over their centre. Based on the author's LMS lecture note volume Skew Field Constructions, the present work offers a comprehensive account of skew fields. The axiomatic foundation and a precise description of the embedding problem are followed by an account of algebraic and topological construction methods, in particular, the author's general embedding theory is presented with full proofs, leading to the construction of skew fields. The powerful coproduct theorems of G. M. Bergman are proved here as well as the properties of the matrix reduction functor, a useful but little-known construction providing a source of examples and counter-examples. The construction and basic properties of existentially closed skew fields are given, leading to an example of a model class with an infinite forcing companion which is not axiomatizable. The treatment of equations over skew fields has been simplified and extended by the use of matrix methods, and the beginnings of non-commutative algebraic geometry are presented, with a precise account of the problems that need to be overcome for a satisfactory theory. A separate chapter describes valuations and orderings on skew fields, with a construction applicable to free fields. Numerous exercises test the reader's understanding, presenting further aspects and open problems in concise form, and notes and comments at the ends of chapters provide historical background.

Skew Fields

Skew Fields
Author: P. K. Draxl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 1983-02-17
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0521272742

The book is written in three parts. Part I consists of preparatory work on algebras, needed in Parts II and III. Part II consists of a modern description of the theory of Brauer groups over fields (from as elementary a point of view as possible). Part III covers some new developments in the theory which, until now, have not been available except in journals.

Quadratic and Hermitian Forms

Quadratic and Hermitian Forms
Author: W. Scharlau
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3642699715

For a long time - at least from Fermat to Minkowski - the theory of quadratic forms was a part of number theory. Much of the best work of the great number theorists of the eighteenth and nineteenth century was concerned with problems about quadratic forms. On the basis of their work, Minkowski, Siegel, Hasse, Eichler and many others crea ted the impressive "arithmetic" theory of quadratic forms, which has been the object of the well-known books by Bachmann (1898/1923), Eichler (1952), and O'Meara (1963). Parallel to this development the ideas of abstract algebra and abstract linear algebra introduced by Dedekind, Frobenius, E. Noether and Artin led to today's structural mathematics with its emphasis on classification problems and general structure theorems. On the basis of both - the number theory of quadratic forms and the ideas of modern algebra - Witt opened, in 1937, a new chapter in the theory of quadratic forms. His most fruitful idea was to consider not single "individual" quadratic forms but rather the entity of all forms over a fixed ground field and to construct from this an algebra ic object. This object - the Witt ring - then became the principal object of the entire theory. Thirty years later Pfister demonstrated the significance of this approach by his celebrated structure theorems.

Spaces of Orderings and Abstract Real Spectra

Spaces of Orderings and Abstract Real Spectra
Author: Murray A. Marshall
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2006-11-17
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3540699961

This book is of interest to students as well as experts in the area of real algebraic geometry, quadratic forms, orderings, valuations, lattice ordered groups and rings, and in model theory. The original motivation comes from orderings on fields and commutative rings. This is explained as is the important application to minimal generation of semi-algebraic sets. Many results in the new theory of abstract real spectra (also called spaces of signs) appear here for the first time. The reader needs elementary knowledge of commutative rings, ordered fields and real closed fields and valuations.