Reversibility in Dynamics and Group Theory

The powerful and far-reaching concept of reversibility is treated for the first time in book form. The authors establish basic principles of reversibility and demonstrate its impact in group theory, geometry, complex analysis and number theory, while describing open research problems throughout. Accessible at the advanced undergraduate level and above.

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Reversibility is a thread woven through many branches of mathematics. It arises in dynamics, in systems that admit a time-reversal symmetry, and in group theory where the reversible group elements are those that are conjugate to their inverses. However, the lack of a lingua franca for discussing reversibility means that researchers who encounter the concept may be unaware of related work in other fields. This text is the first to make reversibility the focus of attention. The authors fix standard notation and terminology, establish the basic common principles, and illustrate the impact of reversibility in such diverse areas as group theory, differential and analytic geometry, number theory, complex analysis and approximation theory. As well as showing connections between different fields, the authors' viewpoint reveals many open questions, making this book ideal for graduate students and researchers. The exposition is accessible to readers at the advanced undergraduate level and above.