Search results for ""Author Richard Earl""

How is a subway map different from other maps? What makes a knot knotted? What makes the Möbius strip one-sided? These are questions of topology, the mathematical study of properties preserved by twisting or stretching objects. In the 20th century topology became as broad and fundamental as algebra and geometry, with important implications for science, especially physics. In this Very Short Introduction Richard Earl gives a sense of the more visual elements of topology (looking at surfaces) as well as covering the formal definition of continuity. Considering some of the eye-opening examples that led mathematicians to recognize a need for studying topology, he pays homage to the historical people, problems, and surprises that have propelled the growth of this field. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

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With over 4,000 entries, this informative A to Z provides clear, jargon-free definitions on a wide variety of mathematical terms. Its entries cover both pure and applied mathematics, and include key theories, concepts, methods, programmes, people, and terminology. For this sixth edition, around 800 new terms have been defined, expanding on the dictionary's coverage of topics such as algebra, differential geometry, algebraic geometry, representation theory, and statistics. Among this new material are articles such as cardinal arithmetic, first fundamental form, Lagrange's theorem, Navier-Stokes equations, potential, and splitting field. The existing entries have also been revised and updated to account for developments in the field. Numerous supplementary features complement the text, including detailed appendices on basic algebra, areas and volumes, trigonometric formulae, and Roman numerals. Newly added to these sections is a historical timeline of significant mathematicians lives and the emergence of key theorems. There are also illustrations, graphs, and charts throughout the text, as well as useful web links to provide access to further reading.

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Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, sharp, inspiring The 17th-century calculus of Newton and Leibniz was built on shaky foundations, and it wasn't until the 18th and 19th centuries that mathematicians--especially Bolzano, Cauchy, and Weierstrass--began to establish a rigorous basis for the subject. The resulting discipline is now known to mathematicians as analysis. This book, aimed at readers with some grounding in mathematics, describes the nascent evolution of mathematical analysis, its development as a subject in its own right, and its wide-ranging applications in mathematics and science, modelling reality from acoustics to fluid dynamics, from biological systems to quantum theory. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

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In 1974, Maurice Zeitlin published a seminal article in The American Journal of Sociology, criticizing managerial theory and evidence, which ended one era in the analysis of the large corporation's ownership and control and began a new one. He called for research on the capitalist class that would reveal its inner structure--particularly the interaction of family ties, property, and business leadership in the large corporation. But, despite the subsequent blossoming of studies of intercorporate and class power, no one else has yet done the systematic empirical analysis he outlined. This work is thus the first to explore the full panoply of intraclass relations--interorganizational, kinship, economic, and political--within an actually existing dominant class. Theoretically sensitive, methodologically precise, and historically grounded, it aims to fill in the blank spots in our knowledge about how "economic classes" become "social classes" and how the latter in turn connect with other social forms. This work is a sustained empirical analysis of Chile's dominant class. But it does more than reveal that class's specific internal structure; it also provides a coherent theory of the inner relations constituting any dominant class in a highly concentrated capitalist economy, a methodological paradigm, and an exemplary body of findings, which can closely guide the study of other dominant classes, especially in the "advanced" societies of the West. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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