Geometry of the quintic

by Jerry Michael Shurman

This book helps students at the advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate levels to develop connections between the algebra, geometry, and analysis that they know, and to better appreciate the totality of what they have learned. The text demonstrates the use of general concepts by applying theorems from various areas in the context of one problem - solving the quintic. The problem is approached from two directions: the first is Felix Klein's nineteenth-century approach, using the icosahedron. The second approach presents recent works of Peter Doyle and Curt McMullen, which update Klein's use of transcendental functions to a solution through pure iteration.