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In Memoriam In Memory of Dr. Thomas J. LeCompte (1964-2025), Detector Designer and Champion of Education and Science. Prologue Defining “the box” Someone who shows interest in science is initially a welcome development. So are fresh ideas from unexpected quarters. In contrast, there is a scientific community that is meticulously organized down to the last…
Abstract Fermat’s Last Theorem has long been one of the most famous mathematical problems, and is now one of the most famous theorems. It simply states that the equation $$ a^n+b^n=c^n $$ has no solutions with positive integers if ##n>2.## It was named after Pierre de Fermat (1607-1665). The problem itself stems from the book…
The Concept A vector space is an additively written abelian group together with a field that operates on it. Intuitive picture vs abstract definition Vector spaces are often described as a set of arrows, i.e. a line segment with a direction that can be added, stretched, or compressed. That’s where the term linear to describe…
Introduction The concept of a group is as simple as it gets: a set with a binary operation like addition and a couple of natural laws like the requirement that the order of two consecutive operations does not matter: ##(1+2)+3=1+(2+3).## That’s it. The concept of a group is so simple that I still wonder why…
Abstract Topology as a branch of mathematics is a bracket that encompasses many different parts of mathematics. It is sometimes even difficult to see what all these branches have to do with each other or why they are all called topology. This article aims to shed light on this question and briefly summarize the content…
Abstract It took until the last century for physicists and mathematicians in the Netherlands to question the Euclidean concept of dimension as length, width, and height. Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer published a ground-breaking paper On the Natural Concept of Dimension (Amsterdam, [2]) in 1913 about the mathematical definition of dimension picking up a thought from…
Abstract Why do we need yet another article about complex numbers? This is a valid question and I have asked it myself. I could mention that I wanted to gather the many different views that can be found elsewhere – Euler’s and Gauß’s perspectives, i.e. various historical views in the light of the traditionally parallel…
A division by zero is primarily an algebraic question. The reasoning therefore follows the indirect pattern of most algebraic proofs: What if it was allowed? Then we would get a contradiction, and a contradiction is the greatest enemy of mathematical rigor. Many students tried to find a way to divide by zero once in their…
Introduction Series play a decisive role in many branches of mathematics. They accompanied mathematical developments from Zeno of Elea (##5##-th century BC) and Archimedes of Syracuse (##3##-th century BC), to the fundamental building blocks of calculus from the ##17##-th century on, up to modern Lie theory which is crucial for our understanding of quantum theory….
Abstract I remember that I had some difficulties moving from school mathematics to university mathematics. From what I read on PF through the years, I think I’m not the only one who struggled at that point. We mainly learned algorithms at school, i.e. how things are calculated. At university, I soon met a quantity called…
Abstract “Mathematics is the native language of nature.” is a phrase that is often used when it comes to explaining why mathematics is all around in natural sciences, especially in physics. What does that mean? A closer look shows us that it primarily means that we describe nature by differential equations, a lot of differential…
Abstract Richard Pierce describes the intention of his book [2] about associative algebras as his attempt to prove that there is algebra after Galois theory. Whereas Galois theory might not really be on the agenda of physicists, many algebras are: from tensor algebras as the gown for infinitesimal coordinates over Graßmann and Banach algebras for…
Abstract Famous Science Communicators There is so much to say about the many endeavors by professional scientists to explain to us the world. The list is long: Carl Sagan, Harald Lesch, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sabine Hossenfelder, Michio Kaku, and I even saw Roger Penrose and Steven Hawking on TV. The list is – of course…
Abstract My school teacher used to say “Everybody can differentiate, but it takes an artist to integrate.” The mathematical reason behind this phrase is, that differentiation is the calculation of a limit $$ f'(x)=\lim_{v\to 0} g(v) $$ for which we have many rules and theorems at hand. And if nothing else helps, we still can…
Abstract I want to shed some light on complex analysis without getting all the technical details in the way which are necessary for the precise treatments that can be found in many excellent standard textbooks. Analysis is about differentiation. Hence, complex differentiation will be my starting point. It is simultaneously my finish line because its…
Abstract We explain by simple examples (one-parameter Lie groups), partly in the original language, and along the historical papers of Sophus Lie, Abraham Cohen, and Emmy Noether how Lie groups became a central topic in physics. Physics, in contrast to mathematics, didn’t experience the Bourbakian transition so the language of for example differential geometry didn’t…
Introduction I often read questions about our classification scheme that we use on physicsforums.com to sort posts by science fields and subjects, what has to be studied first in order to learn something else, what is a good way through physics or mathematics in self-study or simply about the desire to understand, e.g. general relativity…
An entire book could easily be written about the history of numbers from ancient Babylon and India, over Abu Dscha’far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Chwarizmi (##\sim ## 780 – 845), Gerbert of Aurillac aka pope Silvester II. (##\sim ## 950 – 1003), Leonardo da Pisa Fibonacci (##\sim## 1170 – 1240), Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777 –…
* Oct. 25th, 1811 † May 31st, 1832 … or why squaring the circle is doomed. Galois died in a duel at the age of twenty. Yet, he gave us what we now call Galois theory. It decides all three ancient classical problems, squaring the circle, doubling the cube, and partitioning angles into three…
I asked myself why different scientists understand the same thing seemingly differently, especially the concept of a metric tensor. If we ask a topologist, a classical geometer, an algebraist, a differential geometer, and a physicist “What is a metric?” then we get five different answers. I mean it is all about distances, isn’t it? “Yes”…
P or NP This article deals with the complexity of calculations and in particular the meaning of ##P\stackrel{?}{\neq}NP## Before we explain what P and NP actually are, we have to solve a far bigger problem: What is a calculation? And how do we measure its complexity? Many people might answer, that a calculation is an…
Riemann Hypothesis History The Riemann Hypothesis is one of the most famous and long-standing unsolved problems in mathematics, specifically in the field of number theory. It’s named after the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, who introduced the hypothesis in 1859. RH: All non-trivial zeros of the Riemannian zeta function lie on the critical line. ERH: All…
Riemann Hypothesis and Ramanujan’s Sum Explanation RH: All non-trivial zeros of the Riemannian zeta-function lie on the critical line. ERH: All zeros of L-functions to complex Dirichlet characters of finite cyclic groups within the critical strip lie on the critical line. Related Article: The History and Importance of the Riemann Hypothesis The goal of this…
We use integration to measure lengths, areas, or volumes. This is a geometrical interpretation, but we want to examine an analytical interpretation that leads us to Integration reverses differentiation. Hence let us start with differentiation. Weierstraß Definition of Derivatives ##f## is differentiable at ##x## if there is a linear map ##D_{x}f##, such that \begin{equation*} \underbrace{D_{x}(f)}_{\text{Derivative}}\cdot…
Some of these could even lead to heavy debates within the scientific community, so maybe I should say: from my point of view. So before you get excited or even angry about what is to come, please keep in mind to take it with a big grain of salt and try to feel entertained, not…
Proofs in mathematics are what mathematics is all about. They are subject to entire books, created entire theories like Fermat’s last theorem, are hard to understand like currently Mochizuki’s proof of the ABC conjecture, or need computer assistance like the 4-color-theorem. They are sometimes even missing, although everybody believes in the statement like the Riemann…
Part III: Representations Sums and Products. Frobenius began in ##1896## to generalize Weber’s group characters and soon investigated homomorphisms from finite groups into general linear groups ##GL(V)##, supported by earlier considerations from Dedekind. Representation theory was born, and it developed fast in the following decades. The basic object of interest, however, has never…
Part II: Structures Decompositions. Lie algebra theory is to a large extend the classification of the semisimple Lie algebras which are direct sums of the simple algebras listed in the previous paragraph, i.e. to show that those are all simple Lie algebras there are. Their counterpart are solvable Lie algebras, e.g. the Heisenberg algebra ##\mathfrak{H}=\langle…
Part I: Basics Introduction. This article is meant to provide a quick reference guide to Lie algebras: the terminology, important theorems, and a brief overview of the subject. Physicists usually call the elements of Lie algebras generators, as for them they are merely differentials of trajectories, tangent vector fields generated by some operators. Thus the…
Among the most famous people are often geniuses. It’s hard to tell whether this is the reason for the many anecdotes which are told about them, or whether this is just incidentally true. Doubts are allowed, since most scientists are quite ordinary people. But some of them are cranky and all kind of stories circulate…
Operators. The Maze Of Definitions. We will use the conventions of part I (Basics), which are ##\mathbb{F}\in \{\mathbb{R},\mathbb{C}\}##, ##z \mapsto \overline{z}## for the complex conjugate, ##\tau## for transposing matrices or vectors, which we interpret as written in a column if given a basis, and ##\dagger## for the combination of conjugation and transposition, the adjoint…
Basics Language first: There is no such thing as the Hilbert space. Hilbert spaces can look rather different, and which one is used in certain cases is by no means self-evident. To refer to Hilbert spaces by a definite article is like saying the moon when talking about Jupiter, or the car on an automotive…
Part 1 Image source: [23] Some useful bases of ##\mathfrak{su}(2,\mathbb{C})## Notations can differ from author to author: the numbering of the Pauli matrices ##(\text{I 4}), (\ref{Pauli-I})##, the linear combinations of them in the definition to basis vectors ##\mathfrak{B}## of ##\mathfrak{su}(2,\mathbb{C}) \; (\text{I 5}), (\ref{Pauli-II}), (\ref{Pauli-III})##, the embedding of the orthogonal groups ##(\text{I 1})## with…
Part 2 Differentiation, Spheres, and Fiber Bundles Image source: [24] The special unitary groups play a significant role in the standard model in physics. Why? An elaborate answer would likely involve a lot of technical terms as Lie groups, Riemannian manifolds or Hilbert spaces, wave functions, generators, Casimir elements, or irreps. This already reveals…
Managing Exam Stress Exam situations are always situations of stress. It comes with our endeavor to be as good as possible and our fear of failure. Some students handle these situations better than others. But there are some tricks I encountered over the years tutoring young students. I’m sure everybody has developed ways of getting…
All these concepts belong to the toolbox of physicists. I read them quite often on our forum and their usage is sometimes a bit confusing. Physicists learn how to apply them, but occasionally I get the impression, that the concepts behind them are forgotten. So what are they? Especially when it comes to the…
Introduction Let me start with a counter-question. What is a number? Before you laugh, there is more to this question than one might think. A number can be something we use to count or more advanced an element of a field like real numbers. Students might answer that a number is a scalar. This is…
Implicit Function Theorem [1] Jacobi Matrix (Chain Rule). Let ## (x_0,y_0 ) ## be a point in $$U_1 \times U_2 = \{x \in \mathbb{R}^k\,\vert \,||x-x_0||< \varepsilon_1 \} \times \{y \in \mathbb{R}^m\,\vert \,||y-y_0||< \varepsilon_2\}$$ and ## f: U_1 \times U_2 \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^m ## a function with ##f(x_0,y_0)=0## which is totally differentiable at ##(x_0,y_0)## such that the…
Lie Derivatives A Lie derivative is in general the differentiation of a tensor field along a vector field. This allows several applications since a tensor field includes a variety of instances, e.g. vectors, functions, or differential forms. In the case of vector fields, we additionally get a Lie algebra structure. This is, although formulated…
Some Topology Whereas the terminology of vector fields, trajectories, and flows almost by itself suggests its origins and physical relevance, the general treatment of vector fields, however, requires some abstractions. The following might appear to be purely mathematical constructions, and I will restrict myself to a minimum, but they actually occur in modern physics:…
Generalizations Beyond ##\mathbb{R}## and ##\mathbb{C}## As mentioned in the section on complex functions (The Pantheon of Derivatives – Part I), the main parts of defining a differentiation process are a norm and a direction. So to extend the differentiation concepts on normed vector spaces seems to be the obvious thing to do. Fréchet Derivative…
Differentiation in a Nutshell I want to gather the various concepts in one place, to reveal the similarities between them, as they are often hidden by the serial nature of a curriculum. There are many terms and special cases, which deal with the process of differentiation. The basic idea, however, is the same in…
First of all: What is a representation? It is the description of a mathematical object like a Lie group or a Lie algebra by its actions on another space 1). We further want this action to preserve the given structure because its structure is exactly what we’re interested in. And this other space here should…