This book studies the differential geometry of surfaces and its relevance to engineering and the sciences.

This book gives the basic notions of differential geometry, such as the metric tensor, the Riemann curvature tensor, the fundamental forms of a surface, covariant derivatives, and the fundamental theorem of surface theory in a self-contained and accessible manner. Although the field is often considered a OC classicalOCO one, it has recently been rejuvenated, thanks to the manifold applications where it plays an essential role.The book presents some important applications to shells, such as the theory of linearly and nonlinearly elastic shells, the implementation of numerical methods for shells, and mesh generation in finite element methods.This volume will be very useful to graduate students and researchers in pure and applied mathematics."

curvilinear coordinates. This treatment includes in particular a direct proof of the three-dimensional Korn inequality in curvilinear coordinates. The fourth and last chapter, which heavily relies on Chapter 2, begins by a detailed description of the nonlinear and linear equations proposed by W.T. Koiter for modeling thin elastic shells. These equations are “two-dimensional”, in the sense that they are expressed in terms of two curvilinear coordinates used for de?ning the middle surface of the shell. The existence, uniqueness, and regularity of solutions to the linear Koiter equations is then established, thanks this time to a fundamental “Korn inequality on a surface” and to an “in?nit- imal rigid displacement lemma on a surface”. This chapter also includes a brief introduction to other two-dimensional shell equations. Interestingly, notions that pertain to di?erential geometry per se,suchas covariant derivatives of tensor ?elds, are also introduced in Chapters 3 and 4, where they appear most naturally in the derivation of the basic boundary value problems of three-dimensional elasticity and shell theory. Occasionally, portions of the material covered here are adapted from - cerpts from my book “Mathematical Elasticity, Volume III: Theory of Shells”, published in 2000by North-Holland, Amsterdam; in this respect, I am indebted to Arjen Sevenster for his kind permission to rely on such excerpts. Oth- wise, the bulk of this work was substantially supported by two grants from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China [Project No. 9040869, CityU 100803 and Project No. 9040966, CityU 100604].

This book gives the basic notions of differential geometry, such as the metric tensor, the Riemann curvature tensor, the fundamental forms of a surface, covariant derivatives, and the fundamental theorem of surface theory in a self-contained and accessible manner. Although the field is often considered a “classical” one, it has recently been rejuvenated, thanks to the manifold applications where it plays an essential role.The book presents some important applications to shells, such as the theory of linearly and nonlinearly elastic shells, the implementation of numerical methods for shells, and mesh generation in finite element methods.This volume will be very useful to graduate students and researchers in pure and applied mathematics.

This text presents a graduate-level introduction to differential geometry for mathematics and physics students. The exposition follows the historical development of the concepts of connection and curvature with the goal of explaining the Chern–Weil theory of characteristic classes on a principal bundle. Along the way we encounter some of the high points in the history of differential geometry, for example, Gauss' Theorema Egregium and the Gauss–Bonnet theorem. Exercises throughout the book test the reader’s understanding of the material and sometimes illustrate extensions of the theory. Initially, the prerequisites for the reader include a passing familiarity with manifolds. After the first chapter, it becomes necessary to understand and manipulate differential forms. A knowledge of de Rham cohomology is required for the last third of the text. Prerequisite material is contained in author's text An Introduction to Manifolds, and can be learned in one semester. For the benefit of the reader and to establish common notations, Appendix A recalls the basics of manifold theory. Additionally, in an attempt to make the exposition more self-contained, sections on algebraic constructions such as the tensor product and the exterior power are included. Differential geometry, as its name implies, is the study of geometry using differential calculus. It dates back to Newton and Leibniz in the seventeenth century, but it was not until the nineteenth century, with the work of Gauss on surfaces and Riemann on the curvature tensor, that differential geometry flourished and its modern foundation was laid. Over the past one hundred years, differential geometry has proven indispensable to an understanding of the physical world, in Einstein's general theory of relativity, in the theory of gravitation, in gauge theory, and now in string theory. Differential geometry is also useful in topology, several complex variables, algebraic geometry, complex manifolds, and dynamical systems, among other fields. The field has even found applications to group theory as in Gromov's work and to probability theory as in Diaconis's work. It is not too far-fetched to argue that differential geometry should be in every mathematician's arsenal.

This is original, well-written work of interest Presents for the first time (physical) field theories written in sheaf-theoretic language Contains a wealth of minutely detailed, rigorous computations, ususally absent from standard physical treatments Author's mastery of the subject and the rigorous treatment of this text make it invaluable