The main theorem of this monograph, or rather the "absolute" case of the main theorem, provides what is essentially a homotopy-classification of suitably "nondegenerate" maps of Seifert-fibered 3-manifolds into a sufficiently-large, compact, irreducible, orientable 3-manifold M.

This book grew out of a graduate course on 3-manifolds and is intended for a mathematically experienced audience that is new to low-dimensional topology. The exposition begins with the definition of a manifold, explores possible additional structures on manifolds, discusses the classification of surfaces, introduces key foundational results for 3-manifolds, and provides an overview of knot theory. It then continues with more specialized topics by briefly considering triangulations of 3-manifolds, normal surface theory, and Heegaard splittings. The book finishes with a discussion of topics relevant to viewing 3-manifolds via the curve complex. With about 250 figures and more than 200 exercises, this book can serve as an excellent overview and starting point for the study of 3-manifolds.

Topology, for many years, has been one of the most exciting and influential fields of research in modern mathematics. Although its origins may be traced back several hundred years, it was Poincaré who "gave topology wings" in a classic series of articles published around the turn of the century. While the earlier history, sometimes called the prehistory, is also considered, this volume is mainly concerned with the more recent history of topology, from Poincaré onwards.As will be seen from the list of contents the articles cover a wide range of topics. Some are more technical than others, but the reader without a great deal of technical knowledge should still find most of the articles accessible. Some are written by professional historians of mathematics, others by historically-minded mathematicians, who tend to have a different viewpoint.

This book is a study of combinatorial structures of 3-mani- folds, especially Haken 3-manifolds. Specifically, it is concerned with Heegard graphs in Haken 3-manifolds, i.e., with graphs whose complements have a free fundamental group. These graphs always exist. They fix not only a combinatorial stucture but also a presentation for the fundamental group of the underlying 3-manifold. The starting point of the book is the result that the intersection of Heegard graphs with incompressible surfaces, or hierarchies of such surfaces, is very rigid. A number of finiteness results lead up to a ri- gidity theorem for Heegard graphs. The book is intended for graduate students and researchers in low-dimensional topolo- gy as well as combinatorial theory. It is self-contained and requires only a basic knowledge of the theory of 3-manifolds

A careful and systematic development of the theory of the topology of 3-manifolds, focusing on the critical role of the fundamental group in determining the topological structure of a 3-manifold … self-contained … one can learn the subject from it … would be very appropriate as a text for an advanced graduate course or as a basis for a working seminar. —Mathematical Reviews For many years, John Hempel's book has been a standard text on the topology of 3-manifolds. Even though the field has grown tremendously, the book remains one of the best and most popular introductions to the subject. The theme of this book is the role of the fundamental group in determining the topology of a given 3-manifold. The essential ideas and techniques are covered in the first part of the book: Heegaard splittings, connected sums, the loop and sphere theorems, incompressible surfaces, free groups, and so on. Along the way, many useful and insightful results are proved, usually in full detail. Later chapters address more advanced topics, including Waldhausen's theorem on a class of 3-manifolds that is completely determined by its fundamental group. The book concludes with a list of problems that were unsolved at the time of publication. Hempel's book remains an ideal text to learn about the world of 3-manifolds. The prerequisites are few and are typical of a beginning graduate student. Exercises occur throughout the text.

Three volume narrative history of 20th century.

This collection of reprinted 'Featured Reviews' published in Mathematical Reviews (MR) in 1995 and 1996 makes widely available informed reviews of some of the best mathematics published recently. 'Featured Reviews' were introduced in MR at the beginning of 1995 in part to provide some guidance to the current research-level literature. With the exponential growth of publications in mathematical research in the first half-century of MR, it had become essentially impossible for users of MR to identify the most important new research-level books and papers, especially in fields outside of the users' own expertise. This work identifies some of the "best" new publications, papers, and books that are expected to have a significant impact on the area of pure or applied mathematics with which researchers are concerned. All of the papers reviewed here contain interesting new ideas or applications, a deep synthesis of existing ideas, or any combination of these. The volume is intended to lead the user to important new research across all fields covered by MR.

Jerry Marsden, one of the world’s pre-eminent mechanicians and applied mathematicians, celebrated his 60th birthday in August 2002. The event was marked by a workshop on “Geometry, Mechanics, and Dynamics”at the Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Sciences, of which he wasthefoundingDirector. Ratherthanmerelyproduceaconventionalp- ceedings, with relatively brief accounts of research and technical advances presented at the meeting, we wished to acknowledge Jerry’s in?uence as a teacher, a propagator of new ideas, and a mentor of young talent. Con- quently, starting in 1999, we sought to collect articles that might be used as entry points by students interested in ?elds that have been shaped by Jerry’s work. At the same time we hoped to give experts engrossed in their own technical niches an indication of the wonderful breadth and depth of their subjects as a whole. This book is an outcome of the e?orts of those who accepted our in- tations to contribute. It presents both survey and research articles in the several ?elds that represent the main themes of Jerry’s work, including elasticity and analysis, ?uid mechanics, dynamical systems theory, g- metric mechanics, geometric control theory, and relativity and quantum mechanics. The common thread running through this broad tapestry is the use of geometric methods that serve to unify diverse disciplines and bring a widevarietyofscientistsandmathematicianstogether,speakingalanguage which enhances dialogue and encourages cross-fertilization.

This book provides an introduction to hyperbolic geometry in dimension three, with motivation and applications arising from knot theory. Hyperbolic geometry was first used as a tool to study knots by Riley and then Thurston in the 1970s. By the 1980s, combining work of Mostow and Prasad with Gordon and Luecke, it was known that a hyperbolic structure on a knot complement in the 3-sphere gives a complete knot invariant. However, it remains a difficult problem to relate the hyperbolic geometry of a knot to other invariants arising from knot theory. In particular, it is difficult to determine hyperbolic geometric information from a knot diagram, which is classically used to describe a knot. This textbook provides background on these problems, and tools to determine hyperbolic information on knots. It also includes results and state-of-the art techniques on hyperbolic geometry and knot theory to date. The book was written to be interactive, with many examples and exercises. Some important results are left to guided exercises. The level is appropriate for graduate students with a basic background in algebraic topology, particularly fundamental groups and covering spaces. Some experience with some differential topology and Riemannian geometry will also be helpful.

This is the first of a new series of conferences on High Energy Physics to be held at the ICTP on Trieste. The aim of the present Conference is to cover various aspects of physics in 2+1 dimensions, especially (super)membrane theories, and to provide a platform for a discussion of the up-to-date status of the field. There will also be introductory lectures which should be useful, especially to those who wish to begin research in this subject.