Morse Theory: Smooth and Discrete serves as an introduction to classical smooth Morse theory and to Forman's discrete Morse theory, highlighting the parallels between the two subjects. This is the first time both smooth and discrete Morse theory have been treated in a single volume. This makes the book a valuable resource for students and professionals working in topology and discrete mathematics. With a strong focus on examples, the text is suitable for advanced undergraduates or beginning graduate students.

Discrete Morse theory is a powerful tool combining ideas in both topology and combinatorics. Invented by Robin Forman in the mid 1990s, discrete Morse theory is a combinatorial analogue of Marston Morse's classical Morse theory. Its applications are vast, including applications to topological data analysis, combinatorics, and computer science. This book, the first one devoted solely to discrete Morse theory, serves as an introduction to the subject. Since the book restricts the study of discrete Morse theory to abstract simplicial complexes, a course in mathematical proof writing is the only prerequisite needed. Topics covered include simplicial complexes, simple homotopy, collapsibility, gradient vector fields, Hasse diagrams, simplicial homology, persistent homology, discrete Morse inequalities, the Morse complex, discrete Morse homology, and strong discrete Morse functions. Students of computer science will also find the book beneficial as it includes topics such as Boolean functions, evasiveness, and has a chapter devoted to some computational aspects of discrete Morse theory. The book is appropriate for a course in discrete Morse theory, a supplemental text to a course in algebraic topology or topological combinatorics, or an independent study.

This self-contained treatment of Morse theory focuses on applications and is intended for a graduate course on differential or algebraic topology, and will also be of interest to researchers. This is the first textbook to include topics such as Morse-Smale flows, Floer homology, min-max theory, moment maps and equivariant cohomology, and complex Morse theory. The reader is expected to have some familiarity with cohomology theory and differential and integral calculus on smooth manifolds. Some features of the second edition include added applications, such as Morse theory and the curvature of knots, the cohomology of the moduli space of planar polygons, and the Duistermaat-Heckman formula. The second edition also includes a new chapter on Morse-Smale flows and Whitney stratifications, many new exercises, and various corrections from the first edition.

One of the most cited books in mathematics, John Milnor's exposition of Morse theory has been the most important book on the subject for more than forty years. Morse theory was developed in the 1920s by mathematician Marston Morse. (Morse was on the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study, and Princeton published his Topological Methods in the Theory of Functions of a Complex Variable in the Annals of Mathematics Studies series in 1947.) One classical application of Morse theory includes the attempt to understand, with only limited information, the large-scale structure of an object. This kind of problem occurs in mathematical physics, dynamic systems, and mechanical engineering. Morse theory has received much attention in the last two decades as a result of a famous paper in which theoretical physicist Edward Witten relates Morse theory to quantum field theory. Milnor was awarded the Fields Medal (the mathematical equivalent of a Nobel Prize) in 1962 for his work in differential topology. He has since received the National Medal of Science (1967) and the Steele Prize from the American Mathematical Society twice (1982 and 2004) in recognition of his explanations of mathematical concepts across a wide range of scienti.c disciplines. The citation reads, "The phrase sublime elegance is rarely associated with mathematical exposition, but it applies to all of Milnor's writings. Reading his books, one is struck with the ease with which the subject is unfolding and it only becomes apparent after re.ection that this ease is the mark of a master.? Milnor has published five books with Princeton University Press.

Applied topology is a modern subject which emerged in recent years at a crossroads of many methods, all of them topological in nature, which were used in a wide variety of applications in classical mathematics and beyond. Within applied topology, discrete Morse theory came into light as one of the main tools to understand cell complexes arising in different contexts, as well as to reduce the complexity of homology calculations. The present book provides a gentle introduction into this beautiful theory. Using a combinatorial approach—the author emphasizes acyclic matchings as the central object of study. The first two parts of the book can be used as a stand-alone introduction to homology, the last two parts delve into the core of discrete Morse theory. The presentation is broad, ranging from abstract topics, such as formulation of the entire theory using poset maps with small fibers, to heavily computational aspects, providing, for example, a specific algorithm of finding an explicit homology basis starting from an acyclic matching. The book will be appreciated by graduate students in applied topology, students and specialists in computer science and engineering, as well as research mathematicians interested in learning about the subject and applying it in context of their fields.

Geometric topology may roughly be described as the branch of the topology of manifolds which deals with questions of the existence of homeomorphisms. Only in fairly recent years has this sort of topology achieved a sufficiently high development to be given a name, but its beginnings are easy to identify. The first classic result was the SchOnflies theorem (1910), which asserts that every 1-sphere in the plane is the boundary of a 2-cell. In the next few decades, the most notable affirmative results were the "Schonflies theorem" for polyhedral 2-spheres in space, proved by J. W. Alexander [Ad, and the triangulation theorem for 2-manifolds, proved by T. Rad6 [Rd. But the most striking results of the 1920s were negative. In 1921 Louis Antoine [A ] published an extraordinary paper in which he 4 showed that a variety of plausible conjectures in the topology of 3-space were false. Thus, a (topological) Cantor set in 3-space need not have a simply connected complement; therefore a Cantor set can be imbedded in 3-space in at least two essentially different ways; a topological 2-sphere in 3-space need not be the boundary of a 3-cell; given two disjoint 2-spheres in 3-space, there is not necessarily any third 2-sphere which separates them from one another in 3-space; and so on and on. The well-known "horned sphere" of Alexander [A ] appeared soon thereafter.

Due to the lack of proper bibliographical sources stratification theory seems to be a "mysterious" subject in contemporary mathematics. This book contains a complete and elementary survey - including an extended bibliography - on stratification theory, including its historical development. Some further important topics in the book are: Morse theory, singularities, transversality theory, complex analytic varieties, Lefschetz theorems, connectivity theorems, intersection homology, complements of affine subspaces and combinatorics. The book is designed for all interested students or professionals in this area.