To the uninitiated, algebraic topology might seem fiendishly complex, but its utility is beyond doubt. This brilliant exposition goes back to basics to explain how the subject has been used to further our understanding in some key areas. A number of important results in combinatorics, discrete geometry, and theoretical computer science have been proved using algebraic topology. While the results are quite famous, their proofs are not so widely understood. This book is the first textbook treatment of a significant part of these results. It focuses on so-called equivariant methods, based on the Borsuk-Ulam theorem and its generalizations. The topological tools are intentionally kept on a very elementary level. No prior knowledge of algebraic topology is assumed, only a background in undergraduate mathematics, and the required topological notions and results are gradually explained.

A NATO Advanced Study Institute on Nonlinear Functional Analysis and Its Applications was held in Hotel Villa del Mare, Maratea, It.a1y during April 22 - May 3, 1985. This volume consists of the Proceedings of the Institute. These Proceedings include the invited lectures and contributed papers given during the Institute. The papers have been refereed. The aim of these lectures was to bring together recent and up-to-date development of the subject, and to give directions for future research. The main topics covered include: degree and generalized degree theory, results related to Hamiltonian Systems, Fixed Point theory, linear and nonlinear Differential and Partial Differential Equations, Theory of Nielsen Numbers, and applications to Dynamical Systems, Bifurcation Theory, Hamiltonian Systems, Minimax Theory, Heat Equations, Pendulum Equation, Nonlinear Boundary Value Problems, and Dirichlet and Neumann problems for elliptic equations and the periodic Dirichlet problem for semilinear beam equations. I express my sincere thanks to Professors F. E. Browder, R. Conti, A. Do1d, D. E. Edmunds and J. Mawhin members of the Advisory Committee.

As long as a branch of knowledge offers an abundance of problems, it is full of vitality. David Hilbert Over the last 15 years I have given lectures on a variety of problems in nonlinear functional analysis and its applications. In doing this, I have recommended to my students a number of excellent monographs devoted to specialized topics, but there was no complete survey-type exposition of nonlinear functional analysis making available a quick survey to the wide range of readers including mathematicians, natural scientists, and engineers who have only an elementary knowledge of linear functional analysis. I have tried to close this gap with my five-part lecture notes, the first three parts of which have been published in the Teubner-Texte series by Teubner-Verlag, Leipzig, 1976, 1977, and 1978. The present English edition was translated from a completely rewritten manuscript which is significantly longer than the original version in the Teubner-Texte series. The material is organized in the following way: Part I: Fixed Point Theorems. Part II: Monotone Operators. Part III: Variational Methods and Optimization. Parts IV jV: Applications to Mathematical Physics. The exposition is guided by the following considerations: (a) What are the supporting basic ideas and what intrinsic interrelations exist between them? (/3) In what relation do the basic ideas stand to the known propositions of classical analysis and linear functional analysis? ( y) What typical applications are there? Vll Preface viii Special emphasis is placed on motivation.

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An S to the first power version of the Borsuk-Ulam Theorem is proved for a situation where Fix S to the first power may be nontrivial. The proof is accomplished with the aid of a new relative index theory. Applications are given to intersection theorems and the existence of multiple critica points is established for a class of functionals invariant under an S to the first power symmetry. Minimax arguments from the calculus of variations serve as an important tool in establishing the existence of nonlinear vibrations of discrete mechanical systems as modelled by Hamilton's equations. In these arguments one obtains the solutions of the differential equations as critical points of an associated Lagrangian by minimaxing the Lagrangian over appropriate classes of sets. Intersection theorems such as are proved in this paper play a crucial role in this process. In addition to obtaining some intersection theorems this report illustrates their use by proving an existence theorem for multiple critical points of the functional invarianet under an S to the first power symmetry group.