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Volume Entropy
The volume entropy is an asymptotic invariant of a compact Riemannian manifold that measures the exponential growth rate of the volume of metric balls in its universal cover. This concept is closely related with other notions of entropy found in dynamical systems and plays an important role in differential geometry and geometric group theory. If the manifold is nonpositively curved then its volume entropy coincides with the topological entropy of the geodesic flow. It is of considerable interest in differential geometry to find the Riemannian metric on a given smooth manifold which minimizes the volume entropy, with locally symmetric spaces forming a basic class of examples. Definition Let (''M'', ''g'') be a compact Riemannian manifold, with universal cover \tilde. Choose a point \tilde_0\in \tilde. The volume entropy (or asymptotic volume growth) h = h(M, g) is defined as the limit : h(M,g) = \lim_ \frac, where ''B''(''R'') is the ball of radius ''R'' in \tilde centered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invariant (mathematics)
In mathematics, an invariant is a property of a mathematical object (or a class of mathematical objects) which remains unchanged after operations or transformations of a certain type are applied to the objects. The particular class of objects and type of transformations are usually indicated by the context in which the term is used. For example, the area of a triangle is an invariant with respect to isometries of the Euclidean plane. The phrases "invariant under" and "invariant to" a transformation are both used. More generally, an invariant with respect to an equivalence relation is a property that is constant on each equivalence class. Invariants are used in diverse areas of mathematics such as geometry, topology, algebra and discrete mathematics. Some important classes of transformations are defined by an invariant they leave unchanged. For example, conformal maps are defined as transformations of the plane that preserve angles. The discovery of invariants is an important ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conjugate Points
In differential geometry, conjugate points or focal points are, roughly, points that can almost be joined by a 1-parameter family of geodesics. For example, on a sphere, the north-pole and south-pole are connected by any meridian. Another viewpoint is that conjugate points tell when the geodesics fail to be length-minimizing. All geodesics are ''locally'' length-minimizing, but not globally. For example on a sphere, any geodesic passing through the north-pole can be extended to reach the south-pole, and hence any geodesic segment connecting the poles is not (uniquely) ''globally'' length minimizing. This tells us that any pair of antipodal points on the standard 2-sphere are conjugate points.Cheeger, Ebin. ''Comparison Theorems in Riemannian Geometry''. North-Holland Publishing Company, 1975, pp. 17-18. Definition Suppose ''p'' and ''q'' are points on a Riemannian manifold, and \gamma is a geodesic that connects ''p'' and ''q''. Then ''p'' and ''q'' are conjugate points along \ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entropy
Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the microscopic description of nature in statistical physics, and to the principles of information theory. It has found far-ranging applications in chemistry and physics, in biological systems and their relation to life, in cosmology, economics, sociology, weather science, climate change, and information systems including the transmission of information in telecommunication. The thermodynamic concept was referred to by Scottish scientist and engineer William Rankine in 1850 with the names ''thermodynamic function'' and ''heat-potential''. In 1865, German physicist Rudolf Clausius, one of the leading founders of the field of thermodynamics, defined it as the quotient of an infinitesimal amount of hea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynamical Systems
In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a pipe, the random motion of particles in the air, and the number of fish each springtime in a lake. The most general definition unifies several concepts in mathematics such as ordinary differential equations and ergodic theory by allowing different choices of the space and how time is measured. Time can be measured by integers, by real or complex numbers or can be a more general algebraic object, losing the memory of its physical origin, and the space may be a manifold or simply a set, without the need of a smooth space-time structure defined on it. At any given time, a dynamical system has a state representing a point in an appropriate state space. This state is often given by a tuple of real numbers or by a vector in a geometrical manif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Differential Geometry
Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multilinear algebra. The field has its origins in the study of spherical geometry as far back as antiquity. It also relates to astronomy, the geodesy of the Earth, and later the study of hyperbolic geometry by Lobachevsky. The simplest examples of smooth spaces are the plane and space curves and surfaces in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, and the study of these shapes formed the basis for development of modern differential geometry during the 18th and 19th centuries. Since the late 19th century, differential geometry has grown into a field concerned more generally with geometric structures on differentiable manifolds. A geometric structure is one which defines some notion of size, distance, shape, volume, or other rigidifying structu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Systoles Of Surfaces
In mathematics, systolic inequalities for curves on surfaces were first studied by Charles Loewner in 1949 (unpublished; see remark at end of P. M. Pu's paper in '52). Given a closed surface, its systole, denoted sys, is defined to be the least length of a loop that cannot be contracted to a point on the surface. The ''systolic area'' of a metric is defined to be the ratio area/sys2. The ''systolic ratio'' SR is the reciprocal quantity sys2/area. See also Introduction to systolic geometry. Torus In 1949 Loewner proved his inequality for metrics on the torus T2, namely that the systolic ratio SR(T2) is bounded above by 2/\sqrt, with equality in the flat (constant curvature) case of the equilateral torus (see hexagonal lattice). Real projective plane A similar result is given by Pu's inequality for the real projective plane from 1952, due to Pao Ming Pu, with an upper bound of ''π''/2 for the systolic ratio SR(RP2), also attained in the constant curvature case. Klein bottl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Systolic Geometry
In mathematics, systolic geometry is the study of systolic invariants of manifolds and polyhedra, as initially conceived by Charles Loewner and developed by Mikhail Gromov, Michael Freedman, Peter Sarnak, Mikhail Katz, Larry Guth, and others, in its arithmetical, ergodic, and topological manifestations. See also a slower-paced Introduction to systolic geometry. The notion of systole The ''systole'' of a compact metric space ''X'' is a metric invariant of ''X'', defined to be the least length of a noncontractible loop in ''X'' (i.e. a loop that cannot be contracted to a point in the ambient space ''X''). In more technical language, we minimize length over free loops representing nontrivial conjugacy classes in the fundamental group of ''X''. When ''X'' is a graph, the invariant is usually referred to as the girth, ever since the 1947 article on girth by W. T. Tutte. Possibly inspired by Tutte's article, Loewner started thinking about systolic questions on surfaces in the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Degree Of A Map
In topology, the degree of a continuous mapping between two compact oriented manifolds of the same dimension is a number that represents the number of times that the domain manifold wraps around the range manifold under the mapping. The degree is always an integer, but may be positive or negative depending on the orientations. The degree of a map was first defined by Brouwer, who showed that the degree is homotopy invariant ( invariant among homotopies), and used it to prove the Brouwer fixed point theorem. In modern mathematics, the degree of a map plays an important role in topology and geometry. In physics, the degree of a continuous map (for instance a map from space to some order parameter set) is one example of a topological quantum number. Definitions of the degree From ''S''''n'' to ''S''''n'' The simplest and most important case is the degree of a continuous map from the n-sphere S^n to itself (in the case n=1, this is called the winding number): Let f\colon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Thurston
William Paul Thurston (October 30, 1946August 21, 2012) was an American mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology and was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982 for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds. Thurston was a professor of mathematics at Princeton University, University of California, Davis, and Cornell University. He was also a director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. Early life and education William Thurston was born in Washington, D.C. to Margaret Thurston (), a seamstress, and Paul Thurston, an aeronautical engineer. William Thurston suffered from congenital strabismus as a child, causing issues with depth perception. His mother worked with him as a toddler to reconstruct three-dimensional images from two-dimensional ones. He received his bachelor's degree from New College in 1967 as part of its inaugural class. For his undergraduate thesis, he developed an intuitionist foundation for topology. Following this, he r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mostow Rigidity
Mostow may refer to: People * George Mostow (1923–2017), American mathematician ** Mostow rigidity theorem * Jonathan Mostow Jonathan Mostow (born November 28, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has directed films such as ''Breakdown'', '' U-571'', '' Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines'', and '' Surrogates''. Early life Mostow was born ... (born 1961), American movie and television director Places * Mostów, a village in Poland {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Locally Symmetric Space
In mathematics, a symmetric space is a Riemannian manifold (or more generally, a pseudo-Riemannian manifold) whose group of symmetries contains an inversion symmetry about every point. This can be studied with the tools of Riemannian geometry, leading to consequences in the theory of holonomy; or algebraically through Lie theory, which allowed Cartan to give a complete classification. Symmetric spaces commonly occur in differential geometry, representation theory and harmonic analysis. In geometric terms, a complete, simply connected Riemannian manifold is a symmetric space if and only if its curvature tensor is invariant under parallel transport. More generally, a Riemannian manifold (''M'', ''g'') is said to be symmetric if and only if, for each point ''p'' of ''M'', there exists an isometry of ''M'' fixing ''p'' and acting on the tangent space T_pM as minus the identity (every symmetric space is complete, since any geodesic can be extended indefinitely via symmetries about t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
