Functional analysis revisited. An essay on completeness (Q6545379)

This extremely well-crafted text is, according to its author, intermediate between a first and a second course on Functional Analysis. In fact, readers are assumed to be somewhat familiar with the very basics of the subject to fully appreciate the exposition.\N\NThe material indeed includes fundamentals that one would expect to find in a first course, like the Banach fixed point theorem and its application to initial value problems; normed spaces and Banach spaces; equivalent norms; the Stone-Weierstrass theorem; Hilbert spaces, orthogonal projections and orthonormal bases; bounded linear operators and the Neumann series; the Baire category theorem and its consequences (uniform boundedness principle, open mapping theorem, closed graph theorem). The final chapter covers the more advanced topic of operator semigroups including the Hille-Yosida theorem. Each chapter is accompanied by carefully chosen exercises.\N\NThroughout the text, the importance of completeness is emphasised, hence the subtitle that might also read ``The garden of complete delights''.\N\NReaders will appreciate the leisurely, yet precise tone of the presentation; it is likewise noteworthy that many examples come with a probabilistic flavour and that various proofs differ from the established textbook arguments. For example, the author takes advantage of a clever choice of equivalent norm in Chapter~3, and on top of the one-line Baire category proof of the uniform boundedness principle he presents Sokal's elementary proof.\N\NThis flawlessly produced book can be highly recommended to all readers wishing to enhance (or develop) their knowledge of the fundamentals of Functional Analysis.