scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1544057

MaRDI QIDQ4520848zbMATH OpenFDO

Publication date 14 December 2000

Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to functions of a complex variable (30-01) Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to potential theory (31-01)

Review text

This is a textbook on function theory with a non-standard introductory chapter. The book does not start with complex differentiation, but with examples from real analysis motivating the complex functions and their properties. The basis are Laplace's equation and harmonic functions. In this first chapter (Preliminaries), moreover all the terminology about sets and functions is precisely defined. This chapter of 82 pages can be regarded as a dictionary for the basic definitions and a bunch of motivating examples. The mixture given is a little strange since the author gives all definitions which should be well known to students who are familiar with multidimensional calculus and able to understand the motivating examples. In Chapter 2 (Basic Tools) the complex plane is defined, and the elementary complex functions and their geometrical properties are studied by pictures. Differentiability comes next -- on page 115 of the book -- and the local behavior of holomorphic functions is studied. Contour integration and Goursat's lemma follow, and power series finish Chapter 2. Chapter 3 (The Cauchy Theory) starts with Cauchy's Theorem for a convex domain, and as a corollary power series representations for holomorphic functions are given. Eight equivalent conditions for holomorphy come next, and then the usual corollaries of Cauchy theory are given: Liouville's Theorem and the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra. Then Cauchy's Theorem is extended to simply connected sets, and isolated singularities, Laurent series and the computation of residues are covered. The residue theorem, the argument principle and Rouché's Theorem follow. Finally mapping properties like the maximum modulus principle are considered. Chapter 4 is about Residue Calculus. It covers the computation of many special types of integrals on the real line via residues. The complex formulation of the inverse Laplace transform finish this chapter. Chapter 5 is on Boundary Value Problems, and comes back to the examples mentioned in the introduction. The two-dimensional Dirichlet problem for a disk is solved via the Poisson integral formula, leading to harmonic functions and the mean value property. The Schwarz reflection principle leads to the Schwarz-Christoffel formula for polygonal conformal maps. The final chapter is on some special topics like Dixon's proof of Cauchy's Theorem, Runge's Theorem and the Riemann Mapping Theorem. Finally, the boundary behavior of conformal maps is covered. The book under review gives a solid introduction to function theory. It concentrates on the classical topics although some special material is covered as well. My personal feeling is that the material is not completely balanced between very introductory and rather challenging. On the other hand, the mapping point of view is emphasized by many pictures that help the student a lot to understand better the underlying concepts.

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