Notes on Dynamical Systems (Courant Lecture Notes)

This book is an introduction to the field of dynamical systems, in particular, to the special class of Hamiltonian systems. The authors aimed at keeping the requirements of mathematical techniques minimal but giving detailed proofs and many examples and illustrations from physics and celestial mechanics. After all, the celestial $N$-body problem is the origin of dynamical systems and gave rise in the past to many mathematical developments. Jürgen Moser (1928-1999) was a professor at the Courant Institute, New York, and then at ETH Zurich. He served as president of the International Mathematical Union and received many honors and prizes, among them the Wolf Prize in mathematics. Jürgen Moser is the author of several books, among them Stable and Random Motions in Dynamical Systems. Eduard Zehnder is a professor at ETH Zurich. He is coauthor with Helmut Hofer of the book Symplectic Invariants and Hamiltonian Dynamics. Titles in this series are copublished with the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.