A graduate level text based partly on lectures in geometry, mechanics, and symmetry given at Imperial College London, this book links traditional classical mechanics texts and advanced modern mathematical treatments of the subject.

Advanced undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics, physics and engineering.

The lectures in this 2005 book are intended to bring young researchers to the current frontier of knowledge in geometrical mechanics and dynamical systems.

A development of the basic theory and applications of mechanics with an emphasis on the role of symmetry. The book includes numerous specific applications, making it beneficial to physicists and engineers. Specific examples and applications show how the theory works, backed by up-to-date techniques, all of which make the text accessible to a wide variety of readers, especially senior undergraduates and graduates in mathematics, physics and engineering. This second edition has been rewritten and updated for clarity throughout, with a major revamping and expansion of the exercises. Internet supplements containing additional material are also available.

This textbook is mainly for physics students at the advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate levels, especially those with a theoretical inclination. Its chief purpose is to give a systematic introduction to the main ingredients of the fundamentals of quantum theory, with special emphasis on those aspects of group theory (spacetime and permutational symmetries and group representations) and differential geometry (geometrical phases, topological quantum numbers, and Chern-Simons Theory) that are relevant in modern developments of the subject. It will provide students with an overview of key elements of the theory, as well as a solid preparation in calculational techniques.

Whenever systems are governed by continuous chains of causes and effects, their behavior exhibits the consequences of dynamical symmetries, many of them far from obvious. Dynamical Symmetry introduces the reader to Sophus Lie's discoveries of the connections between differential equations and continuous groups that underlie this observation. It develops and applies the mathematical relations between dynamics and geometry that result. Systematic methods for uncovering dynamical symmetries are described, and put to use. Much material in the book is new and some has only recently appeared in research journals. Though Lie groups play a key role in elementary particle physics, their connection with differential equations is more often exploited in applied mathematics and engineering. Dynamical Symmetry bridges this gap in a novel manner designed to help readers establish new connections in their own areas of interest. Emphasis is placed on applications to physics and chemistry. Applications to many of the other sciences illustrate both general principles and the ubiquitousness of dynamical symmetries.

Based on the 1991 LMS Invited Lectures given by Professor Marsden, this book discusses and applies symmetry methods to such areas as bifurcations and chaos in mechanical systems.