Early History of Singular Perturbations (1904-1940)

This equationless talk will describe how singular perturbations began in the ten-minute talk of Ludwig Prandtl at the 3rd International Congress of Mathematicians and how it developed slowly, culminating in the efflux out of Goettingen after 1933 due to Nazi racial policies. Prominent roles are played by Theodore von Karman, Richard Courant, Sydney Goldstein, Mitio Nagumo, Yu-Why Chen, Erich Rothe, Richard von Mises, Wolfgang Wasow, and Kurt O. Friedrichs. The rapid development of the corresponding mathematics occurred largely after World War 2 in America.