Impact Theory

The present work is the first volume of a substantially enlarged version of the mimeographed notes of a course of lectures first given by me in the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, India, during 1964-65. When it was suggested that these lectures be developed into a book, I readily agreed and took the opportunity to extend the scope of the material covered. No background in physics is in principle necessary for understand­ ing the essential ideas in this work. However, a high degree of mathematical maturity is certainly indispensable.

The English teach mechanics as an experimental science, while on the Continent, it has always been considered a more deductive and a priori science. Unquestionably, the English are right. * H. Poincare, Science and Hypothesis Descartes, Leibnitz, and Newton As is well known, the basic principles of dynamics were stated by New­ ton in his famous work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, whose publication in 1687 was paid for by his friend, the astronomer Halley. In essence, this book was written with a single purpose: to prove the equivalence of Kepler's laws and the assumption, suggested to Newton by Hooke, that the acceleration of a planet is directed toward the center of the Sun and decreases in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between the planet and the Sun. For this, Newton needed to systematize the principles of dynamics (which is how Newton's famous laws appeared) and to state the "theory of fluxes" (analysis of functions of one variable).

Unlock the Secrets of How We See and React to Visuals

Although it was in print for a short time only, the original edition of Multiplicative Number Theory had a major impact on research and on young mathematicians. By giving a connected account of the large sieve and Bombieri's theorem, Professor Davenport made accessible an important body of new discoveries. With this stimula­ tion, such great progress was made that our current understanding of these topics extends well beyond what was known in 1966. As the main results can now be proved much more easily.

This book is an attempt to describe the gradual development of the major schools of research on number theory in South India, Punjab, Mumbai, Bengal, and Bihar—including the establishment of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, a landmark event in the history of research of number theory in India.