This text—based on the author's popular courses at Pomona College—provides a readable, student-friendly, and somewhat sophisticated introduction to abstract algebra. It is aimed at sophomore or junior undergraduates who are seeing the material for the first time. In addition to the usual definitions and theorems, there is ample discussion to help students build intuition and learn how to think about the abstract concepts. The book has over 1300 exercises and mini-projects of varying degrees of difficulty, and, to facilitate active learning and self-study, hints and short answers for many of the problems are provided. There are full solutions to over 100 problems in order to augment the text and to model the writing of solutions. Lattice diagrams are used throughout to visually demonstrate results and proof techniques. The book covers groups, rings, and fields. In group theory, group actions are the unifying theme and are introduced early. Ring theory is motivated by what is needed for solving Diophantine equations, and, in field theory, Galois theory and the solvability of polynomials take center stage. In each area, the text goes deep enough to demonstrate the power of abstract thinking and to convince the reader that the subject is full of unexpected results.

This book is based largely on courses that the author taught at the Feinberg Graduate School of the Weizmann Institute. It conveys in a user-friendly way the basic and advanced techniques of linear algebra from the point of view of a working analyst. The techniques are illustrated by a wide sample of applications and examples that are chosen to highlight the tools of the trade. In short, this is material that the author has found to be useful in his own research and wishes that he had been exposed to as a graduate student. Roughly the first quarter of the book reviews the contents of a basic course in linear algebra, plus a little. The remaining chapters treat singular value decompositions, convexity, special classes of matrices, projections, assorted algorithms, and a number of applications. The applications are drawn from vector calculus, numerical analysis, control theory, complex analysis, convex optimization, and functional analysis. In particular, fixed point theorems, extremal problems, best approximations, matrix equations, zero location and eigenvalue location problems, matrices with nonnegative entries, and reproducing kernels are discussed. This new edition differs significantly from the second edition in both content and style. It includes a number of topics that did not appear in the earlier edition and excludes some that did. Moreover, most of the material that has been adapted from the earlier edition has been extensively rewritten and reorganized.

Accessible but rigorous, this outstanding text encompasses all of the topics covered by a typical course in elementary abstract algebra. Its easy-to-read treatment offers an intuitive approach, featuring informal discussions followed by thematically arranged exercises. This second edition features additional exercises to improve student familiarity with applications. 1990 edition.

Actions and Invariants of Algebraic Groups, Second Edition presents a self-contained introduction to geometric invariant theory starting from the basic theory of affine algebraic groups and proceeding towards more sophisticated dimensions." Building on the first edition, this book provides an introduction to the theory by equipping the reader with the tools needed to read advanced research in the field. Beginning with commutative algebra, algebraic geometry and the theory of Lie algebras, the book develops the necessary background of affine algebraic groups over an algebraically closed field, and then moves toward the algebraic and geometric aspects of modern invariant theory and quotients.

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference in honor of Goro Azumaya's seventieth birthday, held at Indiana University of Bloomington in May 1990. Professor Azumaya, who has been on the faculty of Indiana University since 1968, has made many important contributions to modern abstract algebra. His introduction and investigation of what have come to be known as Azumaya algebras subsequently stimulated much research on such rings and algebras, as well as applications to geometry and number theory. In addition to honoring Professor Azumaya's contributions, the conference was intended to stimulate interaction among three areas of his research interests; Azumaya algebras, group and Hopf algebra actions, and module theory. Aimed at researchers in algebra, this volume contains contributions by some of the leaders in these areas.

Actions and Invariants of Algebraic Groups presents a self-contained introduction to geometric invariant theory that links the basic theory of affine algebraic groups to Mumford's more sophisticated theory. The authors systematically exploit the viewpoint of Hopf algebra theory and the theory of comodules to simplify and compactify many of the rele