The book arises from notes of courses taught at the second year
graduate level at the University of Minnesota. It is intended to be used as a learning tool
by people who do not know the subject, rather than as an encyclopaedic reference. The book's title
is intended to indicate both breadth and limitations: it will probably not be very useful to
most physicists or chemists, but it is intended to be appropriate for non-specialists in the area
of representation theory, such as those whose primary interest is topology, combinatorics or
number theory. It is also intended to be a learning tool for those who may become specialists in the area.
The current download comes from July 2012.
If you have comments on what I have written so far,
and particularly if you use this material for teaching,
please let me know.