Elliptic Functions (London Mathematical Society Student Texts)
Cambridge University Press, 9/28/2006
EAN 9780521780780, ISBN10: 0521780780
Hardcover, 404 pages, 24.1 x 15 x 3.1 cm
Language: English
In its first six chapters this 2006 text seeks to present the basic ideas and properties of the Jacobi elliptic functions as an historical essay, an attempt to answer the fascinating question: 'what would the treatment of elliptic functions have been like if Abel had developed the ideas, rather than Jacobi?' Accordingly, it is based on the idea of inverting integrals which arise in the theory of differential equations and, in particular, the differential equation that describes the motion of a simple pendulum. The later chapters present a more conventional approach to the Weierstrass functions and to elliptic integrals, and then the reader is introduced to the richly varied applications of the elliptic and related functions. Applications spanning arithmetic (solution of the general quintic, the functional equation of the Riemann zeta function), dynamics (orbits, Euler's equations, Green's functions), and also probability and statistics, are discussed.
1. The 'simple' pendulum
2. Jacobian elliptic functions of a complex variable
3. General properties of elliptic functions
4. Theta functions
5. The Jacobian elliptic functions for complex k
6. Introduction to transformation theory
7. The Weierstrass elliptic functions
8. Elliptic integrals
9. Applications of elliptic functions in geometry
10. An application of elliptic functions in algebra solution of the general quintic equation
11. An arithmetic application of elliptic functions
12. Applications in mechanics and statistics and other topics
Appendix
Bibliography.