Mathematical foundations of engineering computer science
The character of engineering has been fundamentally changed by the advent of modern computers and the impact of computer science on engineering sciences. Traditional mathematical foundations of engineering are no longer sufficient to support a productive dialog between engineers and computer scientists. This book tries to collect those mathematical foundations which should suffice to fill this gap and which are unaffected by the rapid changes in computer technologies. In the end the reader will find little directly connected to computer science but rather a compendium of the abstract foundations of mathematics as can directly be inferred from the table of contents: 1. logic, 2. set theory, 3. algebraic structures, 4. ordinal structures, 5. general topology, 6. number systems, 7.group theory, 8. graph theory, 9. tensor algebra, 10. stochastic. The authors recommend to study these chapters in the given sequence. In particular the first chapter sets the formal grounds for the following. The authors do their best to help the reader master the abstractness to which he might be unaccustomed. Every detail is made explicit, every definition comes with several simple and clear examples, every proof is given (small) step by (small) step. Many helpful diagrams are included. On the other hand there is not a single exercise and examples giving connections to applications are sparse. The depth and applicability varies with chapter: 1. logic: propostional and first-order logic, proofs and axioms, Gödels uncompleteness theorem is mentioned. 2. set theory: sets, relations, maps, cardinals, countability and uncountability. 3. algebraic structures: from rings to fields, emphasis on vector spaces and matrices, real and complex, with many very detailed examples. 4. ordinal structures: order as relation, extremal elements, well-ordering, fixed-points in ordered sets, axiom of choice and its equivalence with Zorn's lemma, cardinals. 5. general topology: topological spaces, separation axioms, convergence in general topology (filters, nets), (local) compactness, continuity of real functions. 6. number systems: this relatively short chapter has the definition of real numbers as its hightlight. Complex numbers and quaternions are defined, the latter without hints to their physical meaning. 7. group theory: classification of abelian groups, Sylow subgroups, normal chains, solvable groups. This chapter is a fullfledged introduction into group theory. It contains the explicit structure of \(S_4\) in full detail including all subgroups, table of commutators, normal subgroups etc. 8. graph theory: relational algebra, bipartite, multi- and hypergraphs, paths and cycles, path algebra, flows and networks. This chapter is where applications and concrete algorithms are nearest. Matrices are used for diverse calculations and applications. Several algorithms to solve systems of linear equations with generalized operations are given. 9. tensor algebra: vector and tensor algebra, antisymmetric tensors, vector and tensor analysis, covariant derivative and Christoffel symbols, theorems of Stokes and Green. Knowledge of elementary calculus is required, but coordinate transformations and tensor operations are handled in full length with lots of explicit examples in coordinates, but also coordinate-free. 10. stochastic: elementary theory of probability, discrete and continuous probability distributions, Markov processes, spectral analysis, queueing theory, stationary processes. The emphasis in on Markov chains and queueing as an application. The reader will find nothing on statistical tests. The selection of material may be debatable, but the presentation is self-contained and readable without prior knowledge and should give a thorough foundation. The volume has an index but no bibliography.
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