The development of polynomial-elimination techniques from classical
theory to modern algorithms has undergone a tortuous and rugged path.
This can be observed L. van der Waerden's elimination of the
"elimination theory" chapter from from B. his classic Modern Algebra in
later editions, A. Weil's hope to eliminate "from algebraic geometry the
last traces of elimination theory," and S. Abhyankar's sug- gestion to
"eliminate the eliminators of elimination theory. " The renaissance and
recognition of polynomial elimination owe much to the advent and advance
of mod- ern computing technology, based on which effective algorithms
are implemented and applied to diverse problems in science and
engineering. In the last decade, both theorists and practitioners have
more and more realized the significance and power of elimination methods
and their underlying theories. Active and extensive research has
contributed a great deal of new developments on algorithms and soft-
ware tools to the subject, that have been widely acknowledged. Their
applications have taken place from pure and applied mathematics to
geometric modeling and robotics, and to artificial neural networks. This
book provides a systematic and uniform treatment of elimination algo-
rithms that compute various zero decompositions for systems of
multivariate poly- nomials. The central concepts are triangular sets and
systems of different kinds, in terms of which the decompositions are
represented. The prerequisites for the concepts and algorithms are
results from basic algebra and some knowledge of algorithmic
mathematics.