Galois Theory, Third Edition (Chapman Hall/CRC Mathematics Series) [Paperback]

Ian Stewart (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584883936 | ISBN-13: 978-1584883937 | Publication Date: July 28, 2003 | Edition: 3

Ian Stewart's Galois Theory has been in print for 30 years. Resoundingly popular, it still serves its purpose exceedingly well. Yet mathematics education has changed considerably since 1973, when theory took precedence over examples, and the time has come to bring this presentation in line with more modern approaches.

To this end, the story now begins with polynomials over the complex numbers, and the central quest is to understand when such polynomials have solutions that can be expressed by radicals. Reorganization of the material places the concrete before the abstract, thus motivating the general theory, but the substance of the book remains the same.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Chapman and Hall/CRC; 3 edition (July 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584883936
• ISBN-13: 978-1584883937
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #285,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Accessible intro to field extensions and Galois theory, April 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Galois Theory, Second Edition (Paperback)

This book is aimed at upperlevel undergraduates, presumably math majors. I'd say that's about right; it assumes the reader is familar with the basics of groups, and the proofs strike a good balance between rigor and informality.

The book is also accessible to people who have been out of school a while, but are still interested in math. I had to read it more than once to get comfortable with some of the ideas, but Stewart does a good job of providing examples that are understandable given some familiarity with college algebra.

I had some heard about the proofs of the impossibility of trisecting the angle, but had little concept of how that was done. This book made it clear. I had also heard that there was no general formala for solving quintic polynomials, but I was surprised to learn that the solutions couldn't even be expressed by radical equations. I was pleased to be able to follow the proofs.

After reading / working my way through the book at least twice, I feel comfortable enough to tackle more ambitious works. Michio Kuga's "Galois' Dream" adds many new concepts, and illustrates Galois Theory in a different application. Seeing Galois theory in another context has been helpful in understanding what is necessary to being able to use it.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Different Editions and an Errata, March 25, 2006

By 

a reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Galois Theory, Third Edition (Chapman Hall/CRC Mathematics Series) (Paperback)

I just wanted to point out the following:

* The reviews dated prior to the year 2003 refer to earlier editions of the book. The current (3rd) edition was rewritten extensively.

* A list of corrections is available on the Internet. The review guidelines discourage posting URLs, but an internet search with the keywords "stewart galois theory errata" should find the location. You need a postscript reader to view the errata, but a free one is available online.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Textbook plus Popularisation, April 10, 2000

By 

T. F. Mabbott (Cambridge, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Galois Theory, Second Edition (Paperback)

A lovely book that takes time to show off the applications of Galois theory. The expanded sections in the second edition really make a beautiful job of giving a historical and mathematically meaningful context to the central concepts.

However the main body of the work is a quite traditional textbook account that explorers the abstract idea of Galois groups over general fields - leaving the reader to inject the meaning and context. Someone, somewhere is capable of making the central concepts of Galois theory as natural and obvious to the reader as it was to Galois. But this isn't the book.