Introduction to Traversal Theory

Author: P. Walters
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-06-01
Features: In 1970 I gave a graduate course in ergodic theory at the University of Maryland in College Park, and these lectures were the basis of the Springer Lecture Notes in Mathematics Volume 458 called "Ergodic Theory—Introductory Lectures" which was published in 1975. This volume is now out of print, so I decided to revise and add to the contents of these notes. I have updated the earlier chapters and have added some new chapters on the ergodic theory of continuous transformations of compact metric spaces. In particular, I have included some material on topological pressure and equilibrium states. In recent years there have been some fascinating interactions of ergodic theory with differentiable dynamics, differential geometry, number theory, von Neumann algebras, probability theory, statistical mechanics, and other topics. In Chapter 10 I have briefly described some of these and given references to some of the others. I hope that this book will give the reader enough foundation to tackle the research papers on ergodic theory and its applications.