``The K-book: An introduction to algebraic K-theory''


Beta version of complete book

  • Introduction — A fuller table of contents is available here. (These are .dvi files)
  • Chapter I: Projective Modules and Vector Bundles (53pp.) Here is the corresponding .dvi file
    Last major update March 1997. Minor updates 2000, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, Jan./May 2011.

  • Chapter II: The Grothendieck group K_0 (104 pp.) Here is the corresponding .dvi file
    Last major updates Dec. 2003 (sec.6, 7, 9), July 2004 (sec.2, 7, App.).
    Minor updates Sept. 2004, June '05, Aug '06, Jan '07, June/July 2011 (RR).

  • Chapter III: K_1 and K_2 of a ring (70 pp.) Here is the corresponding .dvi file
    Last major update August 2004 (sections 1-4).
    Minor updates June&Sept '05, Jan '07, Jan&July '11.

  • Chapter IV: Definitions of higher K-theory (92 pp.) Here is the corresponding .dvi file
    Major updates March 2007 (Added section 4), January 2006 (Sections 9-11)
    Minor updates Jan. 2008, Aug. 2008, Jan/April/July 2011.

  • Chapter V: The Fundamental Theorems of higher K-theory (87 pp)
    Major update Sept 2008; minor updates Aug 2010, Jan/July 2011

  • Chapter VI: The higher K-theory of Fields (64 pp)

  • References (this is a .dvi file)

    Watch it grow like Topsy!


    Suggestions are welcome!

    I'll be tired by this point, and might quit here.

    Back Story:

    In 1985, I started hearing a persistent rumor that I was writing a book on algebraic K-theory. This was a complete surprise to me! After a few years, I had heard the rumor from at least a dozen people,

    It actually took a decade before the rumor became true... In 1988 I wrote out a brief outline, following Quillen's paper Higher algebraic K-theory I. It was overwhelming. I talked to Hy Bass, the author of the classic book Algebraic K-theory, about what would be involved in writing such a K-book. It was scary, because (in 1988) I didn't know even how to write a book. I needed a warm-up exercise, a practice book if you will.

    The result, An introduction to homological algebra, took over five years to write.

    By this time (1995), the K-theory landscape had changed, and with it my vision of what my K-book should be. Was it an obsolete idea? After all, the new developments in Motivic Cohomology were affecting our knowledge of the K-theory of fields and varieties. In addition, there was no easily accessible source for this new material. Nevertheless, I wrote early versions of Chapters I-IV during 1994-1999.

    In 1999, I was asked to turn a series of lectures by Voevodsky into a book. This project took over six years, in collaboration with Carlo Mazza and Vladimir Voevodsky. The result was the book Lecture Notes on Motivic Cohomology, published in 2006.

    In 2004-2008, Chapters IV and V were completed. At the same time, the final steps in the proof of the Norm Residue Theorem were finished. (This settles not just the Bloch-Kato Conjecture, but also the Beilinson-Lichtenbaum Conjectures and Quillen-Lichtenbaum Conjectures.) The proof of this theorem is scattered over a dozen papers and preprints, and writing it spanned over a decade of work, mostly by Rost and Voevodsky. Didn't it make sense to put this house in order? It did. I am currently collaborating with Christian Haesemeyer in writing a self-contained proof of this theorem.

    Will this be it?

    Thanks for corrections go to:

    R. Thomason, M. Lorenz, J. Csirik, M. Paluch, T. Geisser, Paul Smith, P.A. Ostvaer, D. Grayson, I. Leary, A. Heider, P. Polo, J. Hornbostel, B. Calmes, G. Garkusha, P. Landweber, A. Fernandez Boix, J.-L. Loday, J. Davis, C. Crissman, R. Brasca, O. Braeunling, F. Calegari, K. Kedlaya, D. Grinberg, P. Boavida, R. Reis, J. Levikov, O.Schnuerer, (your name can go here!)

    Errata for Jon Rosenberg's 1994 book on K-theory


    Topsy is a character in Harriet B. Stowe's 1852 book Uncle Tom's Cabin who claimed to have never been born:
    ``Never was born... I 'spect I grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me.'' (sic)
    Partially supported by many NSF and NSA grants over the decades