《代数》(第3版)：As I see it, the graduate course in algebra must primarily prepare studentsto handle the algebra which they will meet in all of mathematics: topology,partial differential equations, differential geometry, algebraic geometry, analysis,and representation theory, not to speak of algebra itself and algebraic numbertheory with all its ramifications. Hence I have inserted throughout references topapers and books which have appeared during the last decades, to indicate someof the directions in which the algebraic foundations provided by this book areused; I have accompanied these references with some motivating comments, toexplain how the topics of the present book fit into the mathematics that is tocome subsequently in various fields; and I have also mentioned some unsolvedproblems of mathematics in algebra and number theory. The abc conjecture isperhaps the most spectacular of these.

Serge Lang (May 19, 1927–September 12, 2005) was a French-born American mathematician. He was known for his work in number theory and for his mathematics textbooks, including the influential Algebra. He was a member of the Bourbaki group.

He was born in Paris in 1927, and moved with his family to California as a teenager. He graduated from CalTech in 1946, and received a doctorate from Princeton University in 1951. He had positions at the University of Chicago and Columbia University (from 1955, leaving 1971 in a dispute). At the time of his death he was professor emeritus of mathematics at Yale University.

(From wikipedia.org)