This book chronicles the Society's activities over fifty years, as membership grew, as publications became more numerous and diverse, as the number of meetings and conferences increased, and as services to the mathematical community expanded. To download free chapters of this book, click here.

Kuo-Tsai Chen (1923-1987) is best known to the mathematics community for his work on iterated integrals and power series connections in conjunction with his research on the cohomology of loop spaces. His work is intimately related to the theory of minimal models as developed by Dennis Sullivan, whose own work was in part inspired by the research of Chen. An outstanding and original mathematician, Chen's work falls naturally into three periods: his early work on group theory and links in the three sphere; his subsequent work on formal differential equations, which gradually developed into his most powerful and important work; and his work on iterated integrals and homotopy theory, which occupied him for the last twenty years of his life. The goal of Chen's iterated integrals program, which is a de Rham theory for path spaces, was to study the interaction of topology and analysis through path integration. The present volume is a comprehensive collection of Chen's mathematical publications preceded by an article, "The Life and Work of Kuo-Tsai Chen," placing his work and research interests into their proper context and demonstrating the power and scope of his influence.

Offers brief treatises on several mathematical areas and a historical summary of American contributions to mathematics during the Society's first fifty years.

This volume outlines the history of the AMS in its first fifty years. To download free chapters of this book, click here.