000 01552cam a22002058i 4500
020 _a9781108832700
082 0 0 _a512/.62
_223
084 _2Colon Classification
100 1 _aLeinster, Tom,
245 1 0 _aEntropy and diversity :
_bthe axiomatic approach /
_cTom Leinster, University of Edinburgh.
300 _apages cm
504 _aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520 _a"The global biodiversity crisis is one of humanity's most urgent problems, but even quantifying biological diversity is a difficult mathematical and conceptual challenge. This book brings new mathematical rigour to the ongoing debate. It was born of research in category theory, is given strength by information theory, and is fed by the ancient field of functional equations. It applies the power of the axiomatic method to a biological problem of pressing concern, but it also presents new theorems that stand up as mathematics in their own right, independently of any application. The question 'what is diversity?' has surprising mathematical depth, and this book covers a wide breadth of mathematics, from functional equations to geometric measure theory, from probability theory to number theory. Despite this range, the mathematical prerequisites are few: the main narrative thread of this book requires no more than an undergraduate course in analysis"--
650 0 _aCategories (Mathematics)
650 0 _aBiodiversity
650 0 _aBiodiversity
650 0 _aNumber of species
650 0 _aEntropy (Information theory)
942 _cBK
999 _c655145
_d655145