Indecomposability in inverse limits.

Topological inverse limits play an important in the theory of dynamical systems and in continuum theory. In this dissertation, we investigate classical inverse limits of Julia sets and set-valued inverse limits of arbitrary compacta. Using the theory of Hubbard trees, the trunk of the Julia set of a postcriticallly finite polynomial is introduced. Using this trunk, a characterization of indecomposability is provided for inverse limits of post-critically finite polynomials restricted to their Julia sets. Inverse limits with upper semicontinuous set-valued bonding maps are also examined. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for inverse limits of upper semicontinuous functions to have the full projection property, answering a question posed by Ingram. The full projection property is an important tool in the study of indecomposable inverse limits. A characterization of the full projection property for arbitrary compacta is given based solely on the dynamics of the bonding functions and a second characterization is given for the class of continuum-valued maps of trees that are residual-preserving.