Amsterdam, W. A. Benjamin, 1967. 1st printing of 1st edition.
Reprints of the author's papers: "Power operations in K-theory" and "K-theory and reality" are reproduced at end. Includes bibliographical references. Wrappers, octavo, 166 plu about 40 un-numbered pages.

From the Introduction.
These notes are based on the course of lectures I gave at Harvard in the fall of 1964. They constitute a self-contained account of vector bundles and K-theory assuming only the rudiments of point-set topology and linear algebra. One of the features of the treatment is that no use is made of ordinary homology or cohomology theory. In fact rational cohomology is defined in terms of K-theory. The theory is taken as far as the solution of the Hopf invariant problem and a start is made on the J-homomorphism. In addition to the lecture notes proper two papers of mine published since 1964 have been reproduced at the end. The first, dealing with operations, is a natural supplement to the material in Chapter III. It provides an alternative approach to operations which is less slick but more fundamental than the Grothendieck method of Chapter III and it relates operations and filtration. Actually the lectures deal with compact spaces not cell-complexes and so the skeleton-filtration does not figure in the notes. The second paper provides a new approach to real K-theory and so fills an obvious gap in the lecture notes.

In mathematics, K-theory is, roughly speaking, the study of a ring generated by vector bundles over a topological space or scheme. In algebraic topology, it is a cohomology theory known as topological K-theory. In algebra and algebraic geometry, it is referred to as algebraic K-theory. It is also a fundamental tool in the field of operator algebras. It can be seen as the study of certain kinds of invariants of large matrices.

CONDITION: Very Good. (Covers have light wear at edges. Contents are intact and clean except for original owner’s signature on front endpaper.)