Group Theory

This book has to be seen to be believed! The title, Group Theory, is nothing if not surprising, given that the material dealt with by Predrag Cvitanovic in these roughly 250 pages requires a level of sophistication well beyond what is offered in the early stages of university algebra. In point of fact, the general theme of the book under review is Lie theory with representation theory in the foreground, and Cvitanovic's revolutionary goal (e.g., 'birdtracks') and, for lack of a better word, the attendant combinatorics. . . . [F]or the right reader, which is to say, an R>0-linear combination of mathematician and physicist equipped with a zeal for novel combinatorics flavored diagram-gymnastics, this book will be a treat and a thrill, and its new and radical way to compute many things Lie is bound to make its mark. ---Michael Berg, MAA Reviews More than just an innovative notation, this book offers a conceptually novel alternative path to a key mathematical result, the classification of finite-dimensional simple Lie algebras. . . . While this volume is an obvious resource for physics students, the traces of physics that remain in the work will elucidate for mathematics students how physics uses Lie groups as a tool. ---D.V. Feldman, Choice I think that the book is a very interesting and thought provoking contribution to the literature on representations of compact Lie groups. It has many interesting original aspects that deserve to be known much better than they are. ---Karl-Hermann Neeb, Journal of the Lie Theory [T]he narrative of the book is written in a relaxed and witty style. The book is intriguing as well as entertaining. ---Jeb F. Willenbring, Mathematical Reviews