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


  • Introduction (under construction) — A fuller table of contents is available here.
  • Chapter I: Projective Modules and Vector Bundles (52pp.) Here is the searchable PDF file
    Last major update March 1997. Minor updates July 2000, Sept. 2004, June 2005, May 2007, November 2008.

  • Chapter II: The Grothendieck group K_0 (101 pp.) Here is the searchable PDF file
    Last major updates Dec. 2003 (sec.6, 7, 9), July 2004 (sec.2, 7, App.).
    Minor updates Sept. 2004, June 2005 (sec.3), August 2006 (Burnside ring), Jan 2007 (compatibility with Chapter V).

  • Chapter III: K_1 and K_2 of a ring (70 pp.) Here is the searchable PDF file
    Last major update August 2004 (sections 1-4). Minor updates June&September 2005, Jan 2007.

  • Chapter IV: Definitions of higher K-theory (88 pp.) Here is the searchable PDF file
    Major updates March 2007 (Added section 4), January 2006 (Sections 9-11), September 2004 (Products and sections 3/10-11 added)
    Minor updates Jan/Nov.'07; Jan. 2008 (Compatibility, proof of Thm.A, +=Q); Aug. 2008 (sections rearranged, Vanishing Conjecture 5.12)

  • Chapter V: The Fundamental Theorems of higher K-theory (66 pp)
    Major update Sept 2008

  • References

    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!

    It actually took a decade before the rumor became true... After a few years, when I had heard the rumor from at least a dozen people, 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. 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 Volodia Voevodsky. The result was the book Lecture Notes on Motivic Cohomology.

    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, (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