It has been noticed by various authors that the use of the hodograph transformation for problems of compressible fluid flow leads to flows having singularities where the acceleration becomes infinite, streamlines have cusps and the solution of the equations of motion in the hodograph plane ceases to represent any possible physical flow. In this paper we investigate the nature of the singularities which can occur in the representation of one plane upon another and apply our results to the hodograph transformation. Finally, we discuss the significance for practical purposes of such singularities and in particular their connexion with the occurrence of shock waves.

In the study of random events and associated fluctuations such as occur in the shot effect, a theorem first stated and discussed by Dr N. R. Campbell can often be employed. It applies on any occasion when there occur at random a number of events whose effects are additive. Let us suppose that a single event occurring at time tr causes at time t an effect f(t − tr) in some part of the observed system, and that the effects of different events are additive, so that the total effect or output is ϑ(t), given by

We may suppose that the same events cause another set of effects g(t − tr) with output ϑ(t), where

Both the functions are assumed to be bounded and integrable in the Riemann sense, as are all the functions studied in physics.

We investigate uniform perfectness of the Julia set of a transcendental meromorphic function with finitely many poles and prove that the Julia set of such a meromorphic function is not uniformly perfect if it has only bounded components. The Julia set of an entire function is uniformly perfect if and only if the Julia set including infinity is connected and every component of the Fatou set is simply connected. Furthermore if an entire function has a finite deficient value in the sense of Nevanlinna, then it has no multiply connected stable domains. Finally, we give some examples of meromorphic functions with uniformly perfect Julia sets.

This paper completes an investigation, of which the first part has already been published, into the integrals of a Hamiltonian system which are formally developable about a singular point of the system. Let

be a system of differential equations of which the origin is a singular point of the first type, i.e. a point at which H is developable in a convergent Taylor series, but at which its first derivatives all vanish. We suppose that H does not involve t, and we consider only integrals not involving t. Let the exponents of this singular point be ± λ1, ± λ2,…±λn. In Part I, I considered the case in which the constants λ1,…λn are connected by no relation of commensurability, i.e. a relation of the form

where A1…An are integers (positive, negative or zero) not all zero, and showed that the equations (1) possess n, and only n, integrals not involving t which are formally developable as power series in the xk, yk. In this paper I consider the case in which λ1 … λn are connected by one or more relations of commensur-ability. Suppose that there are p, and only p, such relations linearly independent (p > 0): it will be shown that the equations (1) possess (n − p) independent integrals not involving t, formally developable about the origin and independent of H.

A short solution is given for the urn problem proposed by Paul and Tatiana Ehrenfest in 1907.

In 1907 P. and T. Ehrenfest(3) proposed an urn model for the resolution of the apparent discrepancy between irreversibility and recurrence in Boltzmann's theory of gases (2). In this model it is assumed that m balls numbered 1, 2, …, m are distributed in two boxes. We perform a series of trials. In each trial we choose a number at random among 1, 2, …, m in such a way that each number has probability 1/m. If we choose j, then we transfer the ball numbered j from one box to the other. Denote by ξn the number of balls in the first box at the end of the nth trial. Initially there are ξ0 balls in the first box. If the trials are independent, then the sequence {ξn;n = 0, 1, 2,…} forms a homogeneous Markov chain with state space I = {0, 1, 2,…, m} and transition probabilities pi,i+1 = (m − i)/m for i = 0, l,…, m − 1, Pi,i−1 = i/m for i = 1, 2,…, m, and pi,k = 0 otherwise. The problem is to determine the transition probabilities

for i∈I, k∈I and n = 0,1, 2,….

Certain physical theories are short-wave limits of more general theories. Thus ray optics is the short-wave limit of wave optics, and classical mechanics is the short-wave limit of wave mechanics. In principle it must be possible to deduce the former from the latter theories by a rigorous mathematical limiting process; in fact the arguments found in the literature are formal, plausible and non-rigorous. (We are here concerned with linear wave equations and time-periodic phenomena.) For some wave equations there are, however, a few explicit rigorous canonical solutions relating to simple geometrical configurations, e.g. to conics in two dimensions for the equations of acoustics, and for these the asymptotics can be found rigorously. For more general configurations the solution of a typical boundary-value problem can be reduced to the solution of a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind.

Given a knot K in a 3-manifold M, we use N(K) to denote a regular neighbourhood of K. Suppose γ is a slope (i.e. an isotopy class of essential simple closed curves) on ∂N(K). The surgered manifold along γ is denoted by (H, K; γ), which by definition is the manifold obtained by gluing a solid torus to H – Int N(K) so that γ bounds a meridional disc. We say that M is ∂-reducible if ∂M is compressible in M, and we call γ a ∂-reducing slope of K if (H, K; γ) is ∂-reducible. Since incompressible surfaces play an important rôle in 3-manifold theory, it is important to know what slopes of a given knot are ∂-reducing. In the generic case there are at most three ∂-reducing slopes for a given knot [12], but there is no known algorithm to find these slopes. An exceptional case is when M is a solid torus, which has been well studied by Berge, Gabai and Scharlemann [1, 4, 5, 10]. It is now known that a knot in a solid torus has ∂-reducing slopes only if it is a 1-bridge braid. Moreover, all such knots and their corresponding ∂-reducing slopes are classified in [1]. For 1-bridge braids with small bridge width, a geometric method of detecting ∂-reducing slopes has also been given in [5]. It was conjectured that a similar result holds for handlebodies, i.e. if K is a knot in a handlebody with H – K ∂-irreducible, then K has ∂-reducing slopes only if K is a 1-bridge knot (see below for definitions). One is referred to [13] for some discussion of this conjecture and related problems.

In this paper we complete the enumeration, begun in [5], of the maximal subgroups of the Fischer group Fi22 and its automorphism group Fi22:2. It turns out that the lists of maximal subgroups given in [5] and [2] are complete. (Note however that in ([5], theorem (A) (iii)), ) should read .) More precisely, we prove

Main Theorem (i) The simple group Fi22 has exactly 14 conjugacy classes of maximal subgroups, as follows:

(ii) The group Aut (Fi22) ≅ Fi22: 2 has exactly 13 conjugacy classes of maximal subgroups, as follows:

The homomorphism of the title is a homomorphism of πr(Sn) into πr+n−1(Sn) given by

where ι generates πn(Sn). Various results on the P-homomorphism were proved in (4); in particular it was shown that, if ηn generates πn+1(Sn), n ≥ 2, then

If PL(v,z) = Σbi(v)zi is the skein polynomial of a link L, and D = D1 * D2 is the diagram which is a planar star (Murasugi) product of D1 and D2 then bϕ(D)(v) = bϕ(D1)·bϕ(D2)(v) where ϕ(D) = n(D)– (s(D) – 1) and n(D) denotes the number of crossings of D, and s(D) is the number of Seifert circles of D.

The 4-dimensional tensor calculus is used to derive the retarded fields of an accelerated electric dipole of constant moment. Following the analogous case of the accelerated charge, it is shown that the result can be expressed concisely in terms of ordinary three-vectors. The radiation field is discussed for important cases including that of the slowly moving dipole. Cases are cited to exhibit the existence of a forward beam of radiation for uniform circular motion.

In this paper we investigate the geometry of simple germs of co-rank 1 maps from ℝ3 to ℝ3. Those of co-dimension 1 have already been dealt with by several authors. In [2], V. I. Arnold considered the problem of evolution of galaxies. For a medium of non-interacting particles in ℝ3 with an initial velocity distribution v = v(x) (and a positive density distribution), the initial motion of particles defines a time-dependent map gt: ℝ3 → ℝ3 given by gt(x) = x + tv(x). At some time t singularities occur and the critical values of gi correspond to points of condensation of particles. Arnold assumed the vector field v is a gradient, that is v = ∇S, for some potential S. J. W. Bruce generalized these results in [4] by dropping the assumption on the velocity distribution and studied generic 1-parameter families of map germs F: ℝ3, 0 → ℝ3, 0.

Near-field transfer of gravitational energy for quasi-static axisymmetric systems is investigated by a perturbation method; a relativistic analogue of Bondi's Newtonian Poynting vector is defined. It is concluded that a quasi-static axisymmetric system can lose energy only in the presence of a receiver.

It is well known that, with respect to the natural partial ordering, the set of all congruences on a group forms a modular lattice. In the present paper we develop an extension of this result to the case of a regular semigroup S (α ∈ αSα for all α in S). Let Σ(ℋ) denote the set of all congruences on S with the property that congruent elements generate the same principal left ideal and the same principal right ideal of S. We show (Theorem 1) that, under the natural partial ordering, Σ(ℋ) is a modular lattice with a greatest and a least element.

Let be a free additive abelian group, and let be a basis of , so that every element of can be expressed in a unique way as a (finite) linear combination with integral coefficients of elements of . We shall be concerned with the ring of endomorphisms of , the sum and product of the endomorphisms φ, χ being defined, in the usual manner, by the equations

A permutation of a set will be called restricted if it moves only a finite number of elements. We call an endomorphism of a permutation endomorphism if it induces a restricted permutation of the basis .

We consider iterations of smooth non-invertible maps on manifolds of real dimension 4, which are hyperbolic, conformal on stable manifolds and finite-to-one on basic sets. The dynamics of non-invertible maps can be very different than the one of diffeomorphisms, as was shown for example in [4, 7, 12, 17, 19], etc. In [13] we introduced a notion of inverse topological pressure P− which can be used for estimates of the stable dimension δs(x) (i.e the Hausdorff dimension of the intersection between the local stable manifold Wsr(x) and the basic set Λ, x ∈ Λ). In [10] it is shown that the usual Bowen equation is not always true in the case of non-invertible maps. By using the notion of inverse pressure P−, we showed in [13] that δs(x) ≤ ts(ϵ), where ts(ϵ) is the unique zero of the function t → P−(tφs, ϵ), for φs(y):= log|Dfs(y)|, y ∈ Λ and ϵ > 0 small. In this paper we prove that if Λ is not a repellor, then ts(ϵ) < 2 for any ϵ > 0 small enough. In [11] we showed that a holomorphic s-hyperbolic map on 2 has a global unstable set with empty interior. Here we show in a more general setting than in [11], that the Hausdorff dimension of the global unstable set Wu() is strictly less than 4 under some technical derivative condition. In the non-invertible case we may have (infinitely) many unstable manifolds going through a point in Λ, and the number of preimages belonging to Λ may vary. In [17], Qian and Zhang studied the case of attractors for non-invertible maps and gave a condition for a basic set to be an attractor in terms of the pressure of the unstable potential. In our case the situation is different, since the local unstable manifolds may intersect both inside and outside Λ and they do not form a foliation like the stable manifolds. We prove here that the upper box dimension of Wsr(x) ∩ Λ is less than ts(ϵ) for any point x ∈ Λ. We give then an estimate of the Hausdorff dimension of Wu() by a different technique, using the Holder continuity of the unstable manifolds with respect to their prehistories.

The only really useful practical method for solving numerical algebraic equations of higher orders, possessing complex roots, is that devised by C. H. Graeffe early in the nineteenth century. When an equation with real coefficients has only one or two pairs of complex roots, the Graeffe process leads to the evaluation of these roots without great labour. If, however, the equation has a number of pairs of complex roots there is considerable difficulty in completing the solution: the moduli of the roots are found easily, but the evaluation of the arguments often leads to long and wearisome calculations. The best method that has yet been suggested for overcoming this difficulty is that by C. Runge (Praxis der Gleichungen, Sammlung Schubert). It consists in making a change in the origin of the Argand diagram by shifting it to some other point on the real axis of the original Argand plane. The new moduli and the old moduli of the complex roots can then be used as bipolar coordinates for deducing the complex roots completely: this also checks the real roots.

A geodesic in space-time is complete if it can be extended to infinite values of its affine parameter: it is shown that all strongly causal spaces are conformal to space-times in which all null geodesies are complete, and that a wide class of space-times are conformal to ones in which almost no null geodesies are complete.

Casson–Gordon invariants were first used to prove that certain algebraically slice knots in S3 are not slice knots [2, 3]. Since then they have been applied to a wide range of problems, including embedding problems and questions relating to boundary links [2, 10, 21, 25]. The most general Casson–Gordon invariant takes its value in L0(ℚ(ζd)(t)) ⊗ ℚ; here ζd denotes a primitive dth root of unity. Litherland [20] observed that one could usually tensor with ℤ(2) instead of ℚ, and in this way preserve the 2-torsion in the Witt group. He then constructed new examples of non-slice genus two knots which were detected with torsion classes in L0(ℚ(ζd)) ⊗ ℤ(2) modulo the image of L0(ℚ(ζd)) ⊗ ℤ(2).

We consider sets of real numbers in [0, 1) with prescribed frequencies of partial quotients in their regular continued fraction expansions. It is shown that the Hausdorff dimensions of these sets, always bounded from below by 1/2, are given by a modified variational principle.