Differentiable Manifolds: A First Course

Lawrence Conlon

Eph 2013 · Springer Science & Business Media

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This book is based on the full year Ph.D. qualifying course on differentiable manifolds, global calculus, differential geometry, and related topics, given by the author at Washington University several times over a twenty year period. It is addressed primarily to second year graduate students and well prepared first year students. Presupposed is a good grounding in general topology and modern algebra, especially linear algebra and the analogous theory of modules over a commutative, unitary ring. Although billed as a "first course" , the book is not intended to be an overly sketchy introduction. Mastery of this material should prepare the student for advanced topics courses and seminars in differen tial topology and geometry. There are certain basic themes of which the reader should be aware. The first concerns the role of differentiation as a process of linear approximation of non linear problems. The well understood methods of linear algebra are then applied to the resulting linear problem and, where possible, the results are reinterpreted in terms of the original nonlinear problem. The process of solving differential equations (i. e., integration) is the reverse of differentiation. It reassembles an infinite array of linear approximations, result ing from differentiation, into the original nonlinear data. This is the principal tool for the reinterpretation of the linear algebra results referred to above.