Book Description
If you have ever wondered where we come from, why we are here and what it all means, this book will help you find the answers while exploring the complex nature of humanity and our relationship with various gods, our interest in astrology, numerology, tarot and our obsession with not thinking. If you don't like having your point of view questioned, this is not the book for you! But if you're brave enough to face up to the strange nature of what makes us human, then this book may just change your life! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Quick read, but packed full of thought provoking stuff
I was very impressed with how much the information the author was able to pack into such a small book! I read it in an afternoon (couldn't put it down), but it really made me think about how I behave and how I act towards other people. ... Read more

Book Description
This book is based on a set of lectures presented by the authorat the NSF-CBMS Regional Conference, Applications of OperatorAlgebras to Knot Theory and Mathematical Physics, held at theU.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in June 1988. The audienceconsisted of low-dimensional topologists and operatoralgebraists, so the speaker attempted to make the materialcomprehensible to both groups. He provides an extensiveintroduction to the theory of von Neumann algebras and to knottheory and braid groups. The presentation follows the historicaldevelopment of the theory of subfactors and the ensuingapplications to knot theory, including full proofs of some ofthe major results. The author treats in detail the Homfly andKauffman polynomials, introduces statistical mechanical methodson knot diagrams, and attempts an analogy with conformal fieldtheory. Written by one of the foremost mathematicians of theday, this book will give readers an appreciation of theunexpected interconnections between different parts ofmathematics and physics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

introduction to knot theory
This book asserts three subjects:

-subfactor theory: It gives the possible values of the index, nevertheless it is too sketchy and one solely interested in this subject should read his inventiones papers.

-knottheory: this is the best part of the books which explain withoutprerequisites and with great clarity the way to compute knotinvariants.

-a pot pourri about 'knot and statistical mechanics'generalization. This part is the worst since the book is now quite old andthe idea are not clear.

This book as the virtues of lectures (clarity,geometric ideas) and it's defaults (few computations, lack of rigor) ... Read more