The second volume of the CRC Press Comprehensive Dictionary of Mathematics covers algebra, arithmetic and trigonometry broadly, with an overlap into differential geometry, algebraic geometry, topology and other related fields. The authorship is by well over 30 mathematicians, active in teaching and research, including the editor.
Because it is a dictionary and not an encyclopedia, definitions are only occasionally accompanied by a discussion or example. In a dictionary of mathematics, the primary goal is to define each term rigorously. The derivation of a term is almost never attempted.
The dictionary is written to be a useful reference for a readership that includes students, scientists, and engineers with a wide range of backgrounds, as well as specialists in areas of analysis and differential equations and mathematicians in related fields. Therefore, the definitions are intended to be accessible, as well as rigorous. To be sure, the degree of accessibility may depend upon the individual term, in a dictionary with terms ranging from Abelian cohomology to z intercept.
Occasionally a term must be omitted because it is archaic. Care was taken when such circumstances arose to ensure that the term was obsolete. An example of an archaic term deemed to be obsolete, and hence not included, is “right line”. This term was used throughout a turn-of-the-century analytic geometry textbook we needed to consult, but it was not defined there. Finally, reference to a contemporary English language dictionary yielded “straight line” as a synonym for “right line”.
The authors are grateful to the series editor, Stanley Gibilisco, for dealing with our seemingly endless procedural questions and to Nora Konopka, for always acting efficiently and cheerfully with CRC Press liaison matters