Early History of Singular Perturbations (1904-1940)

  • Date: 09/14/2007
Lecturer(s):

Bob O'Malley (University of Washington)

Location: 

University of British Columbia

Topic: 

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.

Other Information: 

Centre for Scientific Computing Seminar 2007

Sponsor: 

pims