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The algorithmic solution of problems has always been one of the major concerns of mathematics. For a long time such solutions were based on an intuitive notion of algorithm. It is only in this century that metamathematical problems have led to the intensive search for a precise and sufficiently general formalization of the notions of computability and algorithm. In the 1930s, a number of quite different concepts for this purpose were pro posed, such as Turing machines, WHILE-programs, recursive functions, Markov algorithms, and Thue systems. All these concepts turned out to be equivalent, a fact summarized in Church's thesis, which says that the resulting definitions form an adequate formalization of the intuitive notion of computability. This had and continues to have an enormous effect. First of all, with these notions it has been possible to prove that various problems are algorithmically unsolvable. Among of group these undecidable problems are the halting problem, the word problem theory, the Post correspondence problem, and Hilbert's tenth problem. Secondly, concepts like Turing machines and WHILE-programs had a strong influence on the development of the first computers and programming languages. In the era of digital computers, the question of finding efficient solutions to algorithmically solvable problems has become increasingly important. In addition, the fact that some problems can be solved very efficiently, while others seem to defy all attempts to find an efficient solution, has called for a deeper under standing of the intrinsic computational difficulty of problems.

The subject of amenability has its roots in the work of Lebesgue at the turn of the century. In the 1940s, the subject began to shift from finitely additive measures to means. This shift is of fundamental importance, for it makes the substantial resources of functional analysis and abstract harmonic analysis available to the study of amenability. The ubiquity of amenability ideas and the depth of the mathematics involved points to the fundamental importance of the subject. This book presents a comprehensive and coherent account of amenability as it has been developed in the large and varied literature during this century. The book has a broad appeal, for it presents an account of the subject based on harmonic and functional analysis. In addition, the analytic techniques should be of considerable interest to analysts in all areas. In addition, the book contains applications of amenability to a number of areas: combinatorial group theory, semigroup theory, statistics, differential geometry, Lie groups, ergodic theory, cohomology, and operator algebras. The main objectives of the book are to provide an introduction to the subject as a whole and to go into many of its topics in some depth. The book begins with an informal, nontechnical account of amenability from its origins in the work of Lebesgue. The initial chapters establish the basic theory of amenability and provide a detailed treatment of invariant, finitely additive measures (i.e., invariant means) on locally compact groups. The author then discusses amenability for Lie groups, "almost invariant" properties of certain subsets of an amenable group, amenability and ergodic theorems, polynomial growth, and invariant mean cardinalities. Also included are detailed discussions of the two most important achievements in amenability in the 1980s: the solutions to von Neumann's conjecture and the Banach-Ruziewicz Problem. The main prerequisites for this book are a sound understanding of undergraduate-level mathematics and a knowledge of abstract harmonic analysis and functional analysis. The book is suitable for use in graduate courses, and the lists of problems in each chapter may be useful as student exercises.

Global class field theory is a major achievement of algebraic number theory based on the functorial properties of the reciprocity map and the existence theorem. This book explores the consequences and the practical use of these results in detailed studies and illustrations of classical subjects. In the corrected second printing 2005, the author improves many details all through the book.

The systole of a compact metric space $X$ is a metric invariant of $X$, defined as the least length of a noncontractible loop in $X$. When $X$ is a graph, the invariant is usually referred to as the girth, ever since the 1947 article by W. Tutte. The first nontrivial results for systoles of surfaces are the two classical inequalities of C. Loewner and P. Pu, relying on integral-geometric identities, in the case of the two-dimensional torus and real projective plane, respectively. Currently, systolic geometry is a rapidly developing field, which studies systolic invariants in their relation to other geometric invariants of a manifold. This book presents the systolic geometry of manifolds and polyhedra, starting with the two classical inequalities, and then proceeding to recent results, including a proof of M. Gromov's filling area conjecture in a hyperelliptic setting. It then presents Gromov's inequalities and their generalisations, as well as asymptotic phenomena for systoles of surfaces of large genus, revealing a link both to ergodic theory and to properties of congruence subgroups of arithmetic groups. The author includes results on the systolic manifestations of Massey products, as well as of the classical Lusternik-Schnirelmann category.

The first book devoted to black holes in more than four dimensions, for graduate students and researchers.