Now Available in the MAA Store

A Guide to Functional Analysis  is now available in the MAA Store!   Steven G. Krantz describes his new book below. "Everyone knows that functional analysis is one of the most powerful tools of twentieth-century mathematics. The idea of studying entire spaces of functions, rather than just one function at a time, is both deep and original. Yet it is difficult to get a glimpse of what this subject is really about, or of how it works. The Guide to Functional Analysis takes the neophyte reader and shows him/her the basic concepts and rubric of this time-tested discipline. All the major ideas are illustrated with concrete examples and applications to other parts of mathematics. There are even some illustrations. This is a user-friendly, hands-on introduction to an otherwise austere and forbidding part of the mathematical lore. It will be helpful to students beginning the long journey down the path to mastery of analysis and also enlightening for any mathematician wanting to bone up on linear operators and their uses. This book is meant to be a guide, and we hope that it guides you to a pleasurable reading experience." Purchase a print copy in the MAA Store.

Steven G. Krantz earned his B.A. degree for the University of California at Santa Cruz and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has written over 70 books and over 180 scholarly papers. The MAA has awarded him both the Beckenbach Book Prize and the Chauvenet Prize.

New Book: A Guide to Functional Analysis

A Guide to Functional Analysis by Steven G. Krantz The purpose of A Guide to Functional Analysis is to introduce the reader with minimal background to the basic scripture of functional analysis. Readers should know some real analysis and some linear algebra. Measure theory rears its ugly head in some of the examples and also in the treatment of spectral theory. The latter is unavoidable and the former allows us to present a rich variety of examples. The nervous reader may safely skip any of the measure theory and still derive a lot from the rest of the book. Apart from this caveat, the book is almost completely self-contained; in a few instances we mention easily accessible references. A feature that sets this book apart from most other functional analysis texts is that it has a lot of examples and a lot of applications. This helps to make the material more concrete, and relates it to ideas that the reader has already seen. It also makes the book more accessible to a broader audience. Now available in the MAA eBooks Store Will be available in the MAA Store soon Check out these books also by Steven G. Krantz:  A Guide to Topology A Guide to Real Variables A Guide to Complex Variables A Mathematician Comes of Age An Episodic History of Mathematics Mathematical Apocrypha Mathematical Apocrypha Redux  Complex Analysis: The Geometric Viewpoint A Panorama of Harmonic Analysis