Symplectic Geometry

Lecture 1
Hamilton
 Sir William Rowan Hamilton

Born: 4 Aug 1805 in Dublin, Ireland

Died: 2 Sept 1865 in Dublin, Ireland
 Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi

Born: 10 Dec 1804 in Potsdam, Prussia (now Germany)

Died: 18 Feb 1851 in Berlin, Germany
 Marius Sophus Lie

Born: 17 Dec 1842 in Nordfjordeide, Norway

Died: 18 Feb 1899 in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway
 Elie Joseph Cartan

Born: 9 April 1869 in Dolomieu (near Chambéry), Savoie, Rhône-Alpes, France

Died: 6 May 1951 in Paris, France
Symplectic vector
spaces.
Special kinds of
subspaces.
Symplectic subspaces.
Isotropic subspaces.
Lagrangian subspaces.
Normal form for a symplectic
vector space.
The symplectic group.
The symplectic group in
two dimensions.
Completion of the
proof of Gauss’s
theorem.
electro-weak
theory
Gaussian optics
 “Ray tracing” in
Gaussian optics.
k at how rays of light travel through a system of lenses arranged symmet
ok only at rays contained in a plane through the axis, so in effect I’ll be

ll be basically a sequence of straight line segments. Each segment is det

n initial position P = [x, y] and • a direction vector v = [v x , vy ] of len
ed to start at P and go in the direction of v until something happens
vector
refraction in a N , oriented
substance, then Snell’s Law so and N poin
can bevwritten

nce, then Snell’s n sin r =Law can be writte

r:
Snell’s law.
r n sin i
i

r = arcsin(ni sin i/nr )

nr sin r = ni sin i
mstances, the ratio n i sin i/nr will have magnitude greater than 1, in which ca

N⊥

r = arcsin(ni sin i/nr )

i r

sin i/nr will have magnitude grea

N
i
i

q
The matrix of a
refraction.
The matrix of a translation.
The thin lens.
The focal planes of the
thin lens.
Conjugate planes.
The thin lens equation.
The telescope.
The principal planes.
Hamilton’s method in
Gaussian optics.
Hamilton’s idea.
A formula for the
optical length.
The optical length and the
characteristic function.
 Proof of the formula
for the optical length.
Case 1.
Case 2.