This book considers the so-called Unlikely Intersections, a topic that embraces well-known issues, such as Lang's and Manin-Mumford's, concerning torsion points in subvarieties of tori or abelian varieties. More generally, the book considers algebraic subgroups that meet a given subvariety in a set of unlikely dimension. The book is an expansion of the Hermann Weyl Lectures delivered by Umberto Zannier at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in May 2010. The book consists of four chapters and seven brief appendixes, the last six by David Masser. The first chapter considers multiplicative algebraic groups, presenting proofs of several developments, ranging from the origins to recent results, and discussing many applications and relations with other contexts. The second chapter considers an analogue in arithmetic and several applications of this. The third chapter introduces a new method for approaching some of these questions, and presents a detailed application of this (by Masser and the author) to a relative case of the Manin-Mumford issue. The fourth chapter focuses on the André-Oort conjecture (outlining work by Pila).

This book consists of short descriptions of 106 mathematical theorems, which belong to the great achievements of 21st century mathematics but require relatively little mathematical background to understand their formulation and appreciate their importance. The selected theorems of this volume, chosen from the famous Annals of Mathematics journal, cover a broad range of topics from across mathematics. Each theorem description is essentially self-contained, can be read independently of the others, and requires as little preliminary knowledge as possible. Although the sections often start with an informal discussion and toy examples, all the necessary definitions are included and each description culminates in the precise formulation of the corresponding theorem. Filling the gap between surveys written for mathematicians and popular mathematics, this book is intended for readers with a keen interest in contemporary mathematics.

Explores the recent spectacular applications of point-counting in o-minimal structures to functional transcendence and diophantine geometry.

This book considers the so-called Unlikely Intersections, a topic that embraces well-known issues, such as Lang's and Manin-Mumford's, concerning torsion points in subvarieties of tori or abelian varieties. More generally, the book considers algebraic subgroups that meet a given subvariety in a set of unlikely dimension. The book is an expansion of the Hermann Weyl Lectures delivered by Umberto Zannier at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in May 2010. The book consists of four chapters and seven brief appendixes, the last six by David Masser. The first chapter considers multiplicative algebraic groups, presenting proofs of several developments, ranging from the origins to recent results, and discussing many applications and relations with other contexts. The second chapter considers an analogue in arithmetic and several applications of this. The third chapter introduces a new method for approaching some of these questions, and presents a detailed application of this (by Masser and the author) to a relative case of the Manin-Mumford issue. The fourth chapter focuses on the André-Oort conjecture (outlining work by Pila).

Knots are familiar objects. Yet the mathematical theory of knots quickly leads to deep results in topology and geometry. This work offers an introduction to this theory, starting with our understanding of knots. It presents the applications of knot theory to modern chemistry, biology and physics.

Grothendieck’s beautiful theory of schemes permeates modern algebraic geometry and underlies its applications to number theory, physics, and applied mathematics. This simple account of that theory emphasizes and explains the universal geometric concepts behind the definitions. In the book, concepts are illustrated with fundamental examples, and explicit calculations show how the constructions of scheme theory are carried out in practice.