Synopses & Reviews
This book provides a working knowledge of those parts of exterior differential forms, differential geometry, algebraic and differential topology, Lie groups, vector bundles and Chern forms that are essential for a deeper understanding of both classical and modern physics and engineering. Included are discussions of analytical and fluid dynamics, electromagnetism (in flat and curved space), thermodynamics, the Dirac operator and spinors, and gauge fields, including Yang Mills, the Aharonov Bohm effect, Berry phase and instanton winding numbers, quarks and quark model for mesons. Before discussing abstract notions of differential geometry, geometric intuition is developed through a rather extensive introduction to the study of surfaces in ordinary space. The book is ideal for graduate and advanced undergraduate students of physics, engineering or mathematics as a course text or for self study. This third edition includes an overview of Cartan's exterior differential forms, which previews many of the geometric concepts developed in the text.
Synopsis
This book provides a working knowledge of those parts of exterior differential forms, differential geometry, algebraic and differential topology, Lie groups, vector bundles, and Chern forms that are helpful for a deeper understanding of both classical and modern physics and engineering. It is ideal for graduate and advanced undergraduate students of physics, engineering or mathematics as a course text or for self study.
A main addition introduced in this Third Edition is the inclusion of an Overview, which can be read before starting the text. This appears at the beginning of the text, before Chapter 1. Many of the geometric concepts developed in the text are previewed here and these are illustrated by their applications to a single extended problem in engineering, namely the study of the Cauchy stresses created by a small twist of an elastic cylindrical rod about its axis.