Five decades as a mathematician and educator : on the 80th birthday of Professor Yung-Chow Wong

The book may be viewed as an introduction to time-hadronic waves in dissipative bodies, notably viscoelastic solids and fluids. The inhomogeneity of the waves, which is due to the fact that planes of constant phase are not parallel to planes of constant amplitude, is shown to be strictly related to the dissipativity of the medium. A preliminary analysis is performed of the propagation of inhomogeneous waves in unbounded media and of reflection and refraction at plane interfaces. Then emphasis is given to those features that are of significance for applications. In essence, they regard surface waves, scattering by (curved) obstacles, wave propagation in layered heterogeneous media, ray methods. The pertinent mathematical techniques are discussed so as to make the book reasonably self-contained My Early Life, 1913-1948 / Yung-Chow Wong -- On the Eigenvalues and Numerical Range of a Quaternionic Matrix / Yik-Hoi Au-Yeung -- Monopoles as Fibre Bundles and Strings as Infinite Rank Tensors / Hong-Mo Chan and Sheung Tsun Tsou -- Approximation by Affine Functions / Jor-Ting Chan -- A Review on Optimal Design for Mixture Models / Ling-Yau Chan -- Griffiths' Formalism on the Calculus of Variations via Exterior Differential Systems / Wing-Sum Cheung -- Change of Measures, Likelihood Ratio Martingales and Some Applications / Tze Leung Lai -- Beyond the Impossibility of a 16-Square Identity / Kee Yuen Lam and Paul Yiu -- Lie Group Homomorphisms which Induce Isomorphisms of Representation Rings / S. P. Lam -- A Lifting Theorem, and Rings with Isomorphic Matrix Rings / T. Y. Lam -- On Ternary Equations in Square-Free and Prime Variables / Yau-Luen Lau, Man-Cheung Leung and Ming-Chit Liu -- Instantons and Three-Manifolds / Ronnie Lee Contents:My Early Life, 1913–1948 (Y-C Wong)On the Eigenvalues and Numerical Range of a Quaternionic Matrix (Y-H Au-Yeung)Monopoles as Fibre Bundles and Strings as Infinite Rank Tensors (H-M Chan & S T Tsou)Approximation by Affine Functions (J-T Chan)A Review on Optimal Design for Mixture Models (L-Y Chan)Griffiths'Formalism on the Calculus of Variations via Exterior Differential Systems (W-S Cheung)Change of Measures, Likelihood Ratio Martingales and Some Applications (T L Lai)Beyond the Impossibility of a 16-Square Identity (K Y Lam & P Yiu)Lie Group Homomorphisms which Induce Isomorphisms of Representation Rings (S P Lam)A Lifting Theorem, and Rings with Isomorphic Matrix Rings (T Y Lam)On Ternary Equations in Square-Free and Prime Variables (Y-L Lau, M-C Leung & M-C Liu)Instantons and Three-Manifolds (R Lee)Some Results on the c-Numerical Range (C-K Li & Y-T Poon)A Matrix Formulation of the Complex Flag Manifolds (Q-K Lu)The Integral Formulas of the Pontrjagin Characteristic Forms on an Oriented Differentiable Manifold (X-M Mei)On the Construction of Tensor Fields and Connections on the Frame Bundle (K P Mok)Cellular Manufacturing Systems: Formulation and Algorithmic Issues (S M Ng)Which Inscribed N-Gon in an Ellipse has the Longest Perimeter? (M K Siu & K M Tsang)Hyperbolicity Problems in Function Theory (Y-T Siu)Extreme Positive Operators on Convex Cones (B-S Tam)The Golden Mean and Its Way into Physics (B Y Tong)Readership: Students and scientists in mathematics.Key Features:Gives a comprehensive presentation of ultradistributions and important related analysisA well-organized and essentially self-contained book with direct references to related materialIncludes useful suggestions for future research This volume includes topics such as: invariants of strongly pseudoconvex CR manifolds; the integral formulas of the Pontrjagin characteristic forms on an oriented differentiable manifold; the construction of tensor fields and connections on the frame bundle; and cellular manufacturing systems. I was born on June 2nd, 1913 in Canton, China.