Overview
This work might have been entitled The Introduction of Planck's Constant into Mathematics, in that it introduces quantum conditions in a purely mathematical way in order to remove the singularities that arise in obtaining approximations to solutions of complex differential equations.The book's first chapter develops the necessary mathematical apparatus: Fourier transforms, metaplectic and symplectic groups, the Maslov index, and lagrangian varieties. The second chapter orders Maslov's conceptions in a manner that avoids contraditions and creates step by step an essentially new structure-the lagrangian ayalysis.
Unexpectedly and strangely the last step requires the datum of a constant, which in applications to quantum mechanics is identified with Planck's constant. The final two chapters apply lagrangian analysis directly to the Schrödinger, the Klein-Gordon, and the Dirac equations. Magnetic field effects and even the Paschen-Back effect are taken into account.
Jean Leray-who has been professor at the Collège de France for the past thirty years-has made fundamental contributions to theoretical hydrodynamics, to the study of elliptic, hyperbolic, and analytic linear and nonlinear equations, and to algebraic topology and its applications to analysis. His motivations always had their origin in physical problems, except during World War II: As a prisoner of war in Germany for five years, he concealed his interest in mathematical applications by making fruitful investigations in the field of pure algebraic topology.