Bøger af Garret Sobczyk

Advances in technology over the last 25 years have created a situation in which workers in diverse areas of computerscience and engineering have found it neces- sary to increase their knowledge of related fields in order to make further progress. Clifford (geometric) algebra offers a unified algebraic framework for the direct expression of the geometric ideas underlying the great mathematical theories of linear and multilinear algebra, projective and affine geometries, and differential geometry. Indeed, for many people working in this area, geometric algebra is the natural extension of the real number system to include the concept of direction. The familiar complex numbers of the plane and the quaternions of four dimen- sions are examples of lower-dimensional geometric algebras. During "e;The 6th International Conference on Clifford Algebras and their Ap- plications in Mathematical Physics"e; held May 20--25, 2002, at Tennessee Tech- nological University in Cookeville, Tennessee, a Lecture Series on Clifford Ge- ometric Algebras was presented. Its goal was to to provide beginning graduate students in mathematics and physics and other newcomers to the field with no prior knowledge of Clifford algebras with a bird's eye view of Clifford geometric algebras and their applications. The lectures were given by some of the field's most recognized experts. The enthusiastic response of the more than 80 partici- pants in the Lecture Series, many of whom were graduate students or postdocs, encouraged us to publish the expanded lectures as chapters in book form.

The goal of this book is to present a unified mathematical treatment of diverse problems in mathematics, physics, computer science, and engineer- ing using geometric algebra. Geometric algebra was invented by William Kingdon Clifford in 1878 as a unification and generalization of the works of Grassmann and Hamilton, which came more than a quarter of a century before. Whereas the algebras of Clifford and Grassmann are well known in advanced mathematics and physics, they have never made an impact in elementary textbooks where the vector algebra of Gibbs-Heaviside still predominates. The approach to Clifford algebra adopted in most of the ar- ticles here was pioneered in the 1960s by David Hestenes. Later, together with Garret Sobczyk, he developed it into a unified language for math- ematics and physics. Sobczyk first learned about the power of geometric algebra in classes in electrodynamics and relativity taught by Hestenes at Arizona State University from 1966 to 1967. He still vividly remembers a feeling of disbelief that the fundamental geometric product of vectors could have been left out of his undergraduate mathematics education. Geometric algebra provides a rich, general mathematical framework for the develop- ment of multilinear algebra, projective and affine geometry, calculus on a manifold, the representation of Lie groups and Lie algebras, the use of the horosphere and many other areas. This book is addressed to a broad audience of applied mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, and engineers.

The first book of its kind, New Foundations in Mathematics: The Geometric Concept of Number uses geometric algebra to present an innovative approach to elementary and advanced mathematics.

Matrix algebra has been called "the arithmetic of higher mathematics" [Be]. Especially notable are those algebras which have been used for this purpose in physics, in particular, the system of complex numbers, the quatemions, matrix algebra, vector, tensor and spinor algebras and the algebra of differential forms.