Hermann Weyl's Raum-Zeit-Materie and a General Introduction to His Scientific Work

by Weyl, Hermann; Scholz, Erhard; Coleman, Robert (CON); Korte, Herbert (CON); Goenner, Hubert (CON)

• ISBN13: 9783764364762
• ISBN10: 3764364769
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Birkhauser

Summary

Historical interest and studies of Weyl's role in the interplay between 20th-century mathematics, physics and philosophy have been increasing since the middle 1980s, triggered by different activities at the occasion of the centenary of his birth in 1985, and are far from being exhausted. The present book takes Weyl's "Raum - Zeit - Materie" (Space - Time - Matter) as center of concentration and starting field for a broader look at his work. The contributions in the first part of this volume discuss Weyl's deep involvement in relativity, cosmology and matter theories between the classical unified field theories and quantum physics from the perspective of a creative mind struggling against theories of nature restricted by the view of classical determinism. In the second part of this volume, a broad and detailed introduction is given to Weyl's work in the mathematical sciences in general and in philosophy. It covers the whole range of Weyl's mathematical and physical interests: real analysis, complex function theory and Riemann surfaces, elementary ergodic theory, foundations of mathematics, differential geometry, general relativity, Lie groups, quantum mechanics, and number theory.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
General introduction	1	(14)
Erhard Scholz
I Historical Aspects of Weyl's Raum -- Zeit -- Materie
Journeys in spacetime	15	(33)
Skuli Sigurdsson
Weyls Infinitesimalgeometrie, 1917--1925	48	(57)
Erhard Scholz
Weyl's contributions to cosmology	105	(33)
Hubert Goenner
Ursprunge der Eichtheorien	138	(23)
Norbert Straumann
II Hermann Weyl: Mathematician, Physicist, Philosopher
Robert Coleman
Herbert Korte
Introduction	161	(4)
The young analyst	165	(17)
Riemann surfaces	182	(16)
Spacetime	198	(73)
Group theory and its applications	271	(44)
Foundations of mathematics	315	(86)
III Appendices
Common Weyl Bibliography	389	(10)
Authors	399	(2)
Index	401