Distance metrics and distances have become an essential tool in many areas of pure and applied Mathematics, and this encyclopedia is the first one to treat the subject in full. The book appears just as research intensifies into metric spaces and especially, distance design for applications. These distances are particularly crucial, for example, in computational biology, image analysis, speech recognition, and information retrieval.
Building on the foundations laid in the companion text Modern Engineering Mathematics 3e, this book gives an extensive treatment of some of the advanced areas of mathematics that have applications in various fields of engineering, particularly as tools for computer-based system modelling, analysis and design. Despite the advanced level of this text, the philosophy of learning by doing is retained, with continuing emphasis on the development of students` ability to use mathematics with understanding to solve engineering problems.
Simply put, quantum calculus is ordinary calculus without taking limits. This undergraduate text develops two types of quantum calculi, the q-calculus and the h-calculus. As this book develops quantum calculus along the lines of traditional calculus, the reader discovers, with a remarkable inevitability, many important notions and results of classical mathematics. This book is written at the level of a first course in calculus and linear algebra and is aimed at undergraduate and beginning graduate students in mathematics, computer science, and physics. It is based on lectures and seminars given by Professor Kac over the last few years at MIT.