Joseph Liouville 1809-1882 : Master of Pure and Applied Mathematics
This scientific biography of the mathematician Joseph Liouville is divided into two parts. The first part is a chronological account of Liouville's career including a description of the institutions he worked in, his relations with his teachers, colleagues and students, and the historical context of his works. It portrays the French scientific community in a period when Germany and England had surpassed France as the leading nations in mathematics and physics. The second part of the book gives a detailed analysis of Liouville's major contributions to mathematics and mechanics. The gradual development of Liouville's ideas, as reflected in his publications and notebooks, are related to the works of his predecessors and his contemporaries as well as to later developments in the field. On the basis of Liouville's unpublished notes the book reconstructs Liouville's hitherto unknown theories of stability of rotating masses of fluid, potential theory, Galois theory and electrodynamics. It also incorporates valuable added information from Liouville's notes regarding his works on differentiation of arbitrary order, integration in finite terms, Sturm-Liouville theory, transcendental numbers, doubly periodic functions, geometry and mechanics
1 online resource (xxxviii, 885 pages)
9781461209898, 9781461269731, 1461209897, 1461269733
853258660
Print version:
I. The Career of a Mathematician
I. Youth (1809-1830)
II. Climbing the Academic Ladder (1830-1840)
III. Professor, Academician, and Editor (1840-1848)
IV. The Second Republic (1848-1852)
V. The Last Flash of Genius (1852-1862)
VI. Old Age (1862-1882)
II. Mathematical Work
VII. Juvenile Work
VIII. Differentiation of Arbitrary Order
IX. Integration in Finite Terms
X. Sturm-Liouville Theory
XI. Figures of Equilibrium of a Rotating Mass of Fluid
XII. Transcendental Numbers
XIII. Doubly Periodic Functions
XIV. Galois Theory
XV. Potential Theory
XVI. Mechanics
XVII. Geometry
Appendix I. Liouville on Ampère's Force Law
Appendix II. Liouville's Notes on Galois Theory
Notes
Unpublished Manuscripts and Other Archival Material
List of J. Liouville's Published Works
Other References
English