From the reviews: "The author's book [...] saw its first edition in 1935. [...] Now as before, the original text of the book is an excellent source for an interested reader to study the methods of classical algebraic geometry, and to find the great old results. [...] a timelessly beautiful pearl in the cultural heritage of mathematics as a whole." Zentralblatt MATH
This second volume of our treatise on commutative algebra deals largely with three basic topics, which go beyond the more or less classical material of volume I and are on the whole of a more advanced nature and a more recent vintage. These topics are: (a) valuation theory; (b) theory of polynomial and power series rings (including generalizations to graded rings and modules); (c) local algebra. Because most of these topics have either their source or their best motivation in algebraic geom etry, the algebro-geometric connections and applications of the purely algebraic material are constantly stressed and abundantly scattered through out the exposition. Thus, this volume can be used in part as an introduc tion to some basic concepts and the arithmetic foundations of algebraic geometry. The reader who is not immediately concerned with geometric applications may omit the algebro-geometric material in a first reading (see" Instructions to the reader," page vii), but it is only fair to say that many a reader will find it more instructive to find out immediately what is the geometric motivation behind the purely algebraic material of this volume. The first 8 sections of Chapter VI (including § 5bis) deal directly with properties of places, rather than with those of the valuation associated with a place. These, therefore, are properties of valuations in which the value group of the valuation is not involved.
Oscar Zariski's earliest papers originally appeared in 1924 and have been followed by a steady accretion ever since. That at least four volumes are required to publish his collected papers is an index to his productiveness and persistence; that they have been collected at all is a tribute to their continuing importance in the field of algebraic geometry. The first two volumes of Zariski's papers were published in 1973. Volume I, Foundations of Algebraic Geometry and Resolution of Singularities,was edited by H. Hironaka and D. Mumford, and Volume II, Holomorphic Functions and Linear Systems,was edited by M. Artin and D. Mumford. The papers contained in this third volume were originally published between 1925 and 1966, but the heart of the book is a sequence of papers, topological in nature, that appeared during the period 1928-1937. Zariski writes that "the reader will find in the introduction by M. Artin and B. Mazur an illuminating discussion of these papers and of their impact on later work by other mathematicians. Their discussion includes, in particular, my papers dealing with the following three topics: (1) solvability in radicals of equations of certain plane curves; (2) the fundamental group of the residual space of plane algebraic curves; (3) the topology of the singularities of plane algebraic curves." M. Artin (of MIT) and B. Mazur (of Harvard) both studied under Zariski at Harvard and have since become his colleagues. Their Introduction to this volume provides a useful perspective on Zariski's topological work and on this area of topology in general. These volumes are included in the series Mathematicians of Our Time, under the general editorship of Gian-Carlo Rota. Other volumes in the series now published include papers by Paul Erdos, Einar Hille, Charles Loewner, Percy Alexander MacMahon, George Polya, Hans Rademacher, Stanislaw Ulam, and Norbert Wiener.
The articles in this volume are the outcome of the Impanga Conference on Algebraic Geometry in 2010 at the Banach Center in Bedlewo. The following spectrum of topics is covered: K3 surfaces and Enriques surfaces Prym varieties and their moduli invariants of singularities in birational geometry differential forms on singular spaces Minimal Model Program linear systems toric varieties Seshadri and packing constants equivariant cohomology Thom polynomials arithmetic questions The main purpose of the volume is to give comprehensive introductions to the above topics, starting from an elementary level and ending with a discussion of current research. The first four topics are represented by the notes from the mini courses held during the conference. In the articles, the reader will find classical results and methods, as well as modern ones. This book is addressed to researchers and graduate students in algebraic geometry, singularity theory, and algebraic topology. Most of the material in this volume has not yet appeared in book form.
Moduli problems in algebraic geometry date back to Riemann's famous count of the $3g-3$ parameters needed to determine a curve of genus $g$. In this book, Zariski studies the moduli space of curves of the same equisingularity class. After setting up and reviewing the basic material, Zariski devotes one chapter to the topology of the moduli space, including an explicit determination of the rare cases when the space is compact. Chapter V looks at specific examples where the dimension of the generic component can be determined through rather concrete methods. Zariski's last chapter concerns the application of deformation theory to the moduli problem, including the determination of the dimension of the generic component for a particular family of curves. An appendix by Bernard Teissier reconsiders the moduli problem from the point of view of deformation theory. He gives new proofs of some of Zariski's results, as well as a natural construction of a compactification of the moduli space.
This is the second of four volumes that will eventually present the full corpus of Zariski's mathematical contribution. Like the first volume (subtitled "Foundations of Algebraic Geometry and Resolution of Singularities, " and edited by H. Hironaka and D. Mumford), it is divided into two parts, each devoted to a large but circumscribed area of research activity.The first part, containing eight papers introduced by Artin, deals with the theory of formal holomorphic functions on algebraic varieties over fields of any characteristic. The primary concern, in Zariski's words, is "analytic properties of an algebraic variety "V, " either in the neighborhood of a point (strictly "local" theory) or--and this is the deeper aspect of the theory--in the neighborhood of an algebraic sub-variety of "V" (semiglobal theory)."Mumford surveys the ten papers reprinted in the second part. These deal with linear systems and the Riemann-Roch theorem and its applications, again in arbitrary characteristic. The applications are primarily to algebraic surfaces and include minimal models and characterization of rational or ruled surfaces.
From the Preface: "We have preferred to write a self-contained book which could be used in a basic graduate course of modern algebra. It is also with an eye to the student that we have tried to give full and detailed explanations in the proofs... We have also tried, this time with an eye to both the student and the mature mathematician, to give a many-sided treatment of our topics, not hesitating to offer several proofs of one and the same result when we thought that something might be learned, as to methods, from each of the proofs.
A precise, fundamental study of commutative algebra, this largely self-contained treatment is the first in a two-volume set. Intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in mathematics, its prerequisites are the rudiments of set theory and linear algebra, including matrices and determinants. The opening chapter develops introductory notions concerning groups, rings, fields, polynomial rings, and vector spaces. Subsequent chapters feature an exposition of field theory and classical material concerning ideals and modules in arbitrary commutative rings, including detailed studies of direct sum decompositions. The final two chapters explore Noetherian rings and Dedekind domains. This work prepares readers for the more advanced topics of Volume II, which include valuation theory, polynomial and power series rings, and local algebra.
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