During the last three decades geosciences and geo-engineering were influenced by two essential scenarios: First, the technological progress has changed completely the observational and measurement techniques. Modern high speed computers and satellite based techniques are entering more and more all geodisciplines. Second, there is a growing public concern about the future of our planet, its climate, its environment, and about an expected shortage of natural resources. Obviously, both aspects, viz. efficient strategies of protection against threats of a changing Earth and the exceptional situation of getting terrestrial, airborne as well as spaceborne data of better and better quality explain the strong need of new mathematical structures, tools, and methods. Mathematics concerned with geoscientific problems, i.e., Geomathematics, is becoming increasingly important. The ‘Handbook Geomathematics’ as a central reference work in this area comprises the following scientific fields: (I) observational and measurement key technologies (II) modelling of the system Earth (geosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere) (III) analytic, algebraic, and operator-theoretic methods (IV) statistical and stochastic methods (V) computational and numerical analysis methods (VI) historical background and future perspectives.

Written by leading experts, this book provides a clear and comprehensive survey of the “status quo” of the interrelating process and cross-fertilization of structures and methods in mathematical geodesy. Starting with a foundation of functional analysis, potential theory, constructive approximation, special function theory, and inverse problems, readers are subsequently introduced to today’s least squares approximation, spherical harmonics reflected spline and wavelet concepts, boundary value problems, Runge-Walsh framework, geodetic observables, geoidal modeling, ill-posed problems and regularizations, inverse gravimetry, and satellite gravity gradiometry. All chapters are self-contained and can be studied individually, making the book an ideal resource for both graduate students and active researchers who want to acquaint themselves with the mathematical aspects of modern geodesy.

The authors introduce geomathematics as an active research area to a wider audience. Chapter 1 presents an introduction to the Earth as a system to apply scientific methods. Emphasis is laid on transfers from virtual models to reality and vice versa. In the second chapter geomathematics is introduced as a new scientific area which nevertheless has its roots in antiquity. The modern conception of geomathematics is outlined from different points of view and its challenging nature is described as well as its interdisciplinarity. Geomathematics is shown as the bridge between the real world and the virtual world. The complex mathematical tools are shown from a variety of fields necessary to tackle geoscientific problems in the mathematical language. Chapter 3 contains some exemplary applications as novel exploration methods. Particular importance is laid on the change of language when it comes to translate measurements to mathematical models. New solution methods like the multiscale mollifier technique are presented. Further applications discussed are aspects of reflection seismics. Chapter 4 is devoted to the short description of recent activities in geomathematics. The Appendix (Chapter 5) is devoted to the GEM – International Journal on Geomathematics founded ten years ago. Besides a detailed structural analysis of the editorial goals an index of all papers published in former issues is given.

As the Earth`s surface deviates from its spherical shape by less than 0.4 percent of its radius and today's satellite missions collect their gravitational and magnetic data on nearly spherical orbits, sphere-oriented mathematical methods and tools play important roles in studying the Earth's gravitational and magnetic field. Geomathematically Orien

This book presents, in a consistent and unified overview, results and developments in the field of today ́s spherical sampling, particularly arising in mathematical geosciences. Although the book often refers to original contributions, the authors made them accessible to (graduate) students and scientists not only from mathematics but also from geosciences and geoengineering. Building a library of topics in spherical sampling theory it shows how advances in this theory lead to new discoveries in mathematical, geodetic, geophysical as well as other scientific branches like neuro-medicine. A must-to-read for everybody working in the area of spherical sampling.

The book provides the geoscientific context, that arises in gravimetric/magnetometric exploration. It essentially uses mathematics as a key technology for modeling issues on the basis of analysis and interpretation according to dense and precise gravitational/magnetic measurements. It is dedicated to surface and deep geology with potential data primarily of terrestrial origin. The book spans the interdisciplinary arc from geoengineering, especially geodesy, via geophysics to geomathematics and geology, and back again. It presents the recently published pioneering and groundbreaking multiscale mollifier methodologies realizing the bridging transfer from gravitational/magnetic measurements to approximative/numerical mollifier wavelet decorrelations with novel geologic prospects and layer-structure determination as outcome. Using the specific example of the German Saarland region, new important fields of application, especially for areas with mining-related cavities, will be opened up and subjected to an in-depth geologic detection.

Special functions enable us to formulate a scientific problem by reduction such that a new, more concrete problem can be attacked within a well-structured framework, usually in the context of differential equations. A good understanding of special functions provides the capacity to recognize the causality between the abstractness of the mathematical concept and both the impact on and cross-sectional importance to the scientific reality. The special functions to be discussed in this monograph vary greatly, depending on the measurement parameters examined (gravitation, electric and magnetic fields, deformation, climate observables, fluid flow, etc.) and on the respective field characteristic (potential field, diffusion field, wave field). The differential equation under consideration determines the type of special functions that are needed in the desired reduction process. Each chapter closes with exercises that reflect significant topics, mostly in computational applications. As a result, readers are not only directly confronted with the specific contents of each chapter, but also with additional knowledge on mathematical fields of research, where special functions are essential to application. All in all, the book is an equally valuable resource for education in geomathematics and the study of applied and harmonic analysis. Students who wish to continue with further studies should consult the literature given as supplements for each topic covered in the exercises.

This volume aims to highlight trends and important directions of research in orthogonal polynomials, q-series, and related topics in number theory, combinatorics, approximation theory, mathematical physics, and computational and applied harmonic analysis. This collection is based on the invited lectures by well-known contributors from the International Conference on Orthogonal Polynomials and q-Series, that was held at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, on May 10-12, 2015. The conference was dedicated to Professor Mourad Ismail on his 70th birthday.The editors strived for a volume that would inspire young researchers and provide a wealth of information in an engaging format. Theoretical, combinatorial and computational/algorithmic aspects are considered, and each chapter contains many references on its topic, when appropriate.

This monograph presents the geoscientific context arising in decorrelative gravitational exploration to determine the mass density distribution inside the Earth. First, an insight into the current state of research is given by reducing gravimetry to mathematically accessible, and thus calculable, decorrelated models. In this way, the various unresolved questions and problems of gravimetry are made available to a broad scientific audience and the exploration industry. New theoretical developments will be given, and innovative ways of modeling geologic layers and faults by mollifier regularization techniques are shown. This book is dedicated to surface as well as volume geology with potential data primarily of terrestrial origin. For deep geology, the geomathematical decorrelation methods are to be designed in such a way that depth information (e.g., in boreholes) may be canonically entered. Bridging several different geo-disciplines, this book leads in a cycle from the potential measurements made by geoengineers, to the cleansing of data by geophysicists and geoengineers, to the subsequent theory and model formation, computer-based implementation, and numerical calculation and simulations made by geomathematicians, to interpretation by geologists, and, if necessary, back. It therefore spans the spectrum from geoengineering, especially geodesy, via geophysics to geomathematics and geology, and back. Using the German Saarland area for methodological tests, important new fields of application are opened, particularly for regions with mining-related cavities or dense development in today's geo-exploration.

The year's finest mathematics writing from around the world This annual anthology brings together the year’s finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2017 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else—and you don’t need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday occurrences of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today’s hottest mathematical debates. Here Evelyn Lamb describes the excitement of searching for incomprehensibly large prime numbers, Jeremy Gray speculates about who would have won math’s highest prize—the Fields Medal—in the nineteenth century, and Philip Davis looks at mathematical results and artifacts from a business and marketing viewpoint. In other essays, Noson Yanofsky explores the inherent limits of knowledge in mathematical thinking, Jo Boaler and Lang Chen reveal why finger-counting enhances children’s receptivity to mathematical ideas, and Carlo Séquin and Raymond Shiau attempt to discover how the Renaissance painter Fra Luca Pacioli managed to convincingly depict his famous rhombicuboctahedron, a twenty-six-sided Archimedean solid. And there’s much, much more. In addition to presenting the year’s most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a bibliography of other notable writings and an introduction by the editor, Mircea Pitici. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us—and where it is headed.