Reconstructing basic ideas in geometry—an empirical approach

“Basic ideas” (or “fundamental ideas” etc.) have been discussed in mathematical curriculum theory for about forty years. This paper will centre on the hypothesis that this concept can only be applied successfully by using it as a category for the analysis of concrete mathematical problems. This hypothesis will be illustrated by means of a sample problem from the Austrian Standards for Mathematics Education (“Bildungsstandards”). In this example, basic ideas are used in a content matter analysis which takes students' solutions to the problem as a starting point for the creation of a potentially substantial learning environment in trigonometry.     

High dose iron implantation into silicon and metals

High dose implantations of Fe into metals and semiconductors have been performed with beam energies up to 1 MeV at the UNILAC-injector at GSI. Unusual high concentrations of 70 atomic % for Si and 20 atomic % for Cu have been obtained, with doses of 10¹⁸ Fe/cm² in the case of Si and several 10¹⁷ Fe/cm² in the case of Cu. For Si the thickness of the layers were determined by Rutherford backscattering to be 4500 Å. These results are consistent with calculations, which show that these high concentrations are due to the reduction of the sputter yield at the relative high particle energies. Samples have been characterized using several complementary methods (Mössbauer Spectroscopy (MS), Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy (RBS), Auger electron Spectroscopy (AES). Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD)).     

Phase transitions and positive definite couplings

The method of infrared bounds is extended to a large class of nearest neighbour interactions in classical spin systems. Temperature controlled bounds on fluctuations follow whenever the coupling function is a positive definite kernel. Existence of phase transitions is demonstrated for the RP ^Nmodel for d3.     

Groupwise density and related cardinals

We prove several theorems about the cardinal associated with groupwise density. With respect to a natural ordering of families of nond-ecreasing maps from to, all families of size are below all unbounded families. With respect to a natural ordering of filters on, all filters generated by sets are below all non-feeble filters. If then and . (The definitions of these cardinals are recalled in the introduction.) Finally, some consequences deduced from by Laflamme are shown to be equivalent to .     

Spin content of the nucleon in a non-topological chiral soliton model

The spin content of the proton is investigated by studying the flavor singlet axial structure of the nucleon in a non-topological chiral soliton model. In order to construct a nucleon state we used the generator coordinate projection method as well as a coherent state for the meson wave function. Using a standard set of parameters we found the value g _A ⁰ ? 0.44 for the flavor singlet axial vector coupling constant. This result is not far from that of a typical valence quark model.     

An instanton-invariant for 3-manifolds

To an oriented closed 3-dimensional manifoldM withH ₁(M, )=0, we assign a ₈-graded homology groupI _*(M) whose Euler characteristic is twice Casson's invariant. The definition uses a construction on the space of instantons onM×.