This beginners' course provides students with a general and sufficiently easy to grasp theory of the Kurzweil-Henstock integral. The integral is indeed more general than Lebesgue's in RN, but its construction is rather simple, since it makes use of Riemann sums which, being geometrically viewable, are more easy to be understood. The theory is developed also for functions of several variables, and for differential forms, as well, finally leading to the celebrated Stokes-Cartan formula. In the appendices, differential calculus in RN is reviewed, with the theory of differentiable manifolds. Also, the Banach-Tarski paradox is presented here, with a complete proof, a rather peculiar argument for this type of monographs.

Autorentext

Alessandro Fonda, Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy.

Inhalt

Functions of one real variable.- Functions of several real variables.- Differential forms.- Differential calculus in RN.- The Stokes-Cartan and the Poincaré theorems.- On differentiable manifolds.- The Banach-Tarski paradox.- A brief historical note.