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Palais–Smale Compactness Condition
The Palais–Smale compactness condition, named after Richard Palais and Stephen Smale, is a hypothesis for some theorems of the calculus of variations. It is useful for guaranteeing the existence of certain kinds of critical point (mathematics), critical points, in particular saddle points. The Palais-Smale condition is a condition on the functional (mathematics), functional that one is trying to extremize. In finite-dimensional spaces, the Palais–Smale condition for a continuously differentiable real-valued function is satisfied automatically for proper maps: functions which do not take unbounded sets into bounded sets. In the calculus of variations, where one is typically interested in infinite-dimensional function spaces, the condition is necessary because some extra notion of compactness beyond simple boundedness is needed. See, for example, the proof of the mountain pass theorem in section 8.5 of Evans. Strong formulation A continuously Fréchet derivative, Fréchet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Palais
Richard Sheldon Palais (born May 22, 1931) is a mathematician working in geometry who introduced the principle of symmetric criticality, the Mostow–Palais theorem, the Lie–Palais theorem, the Morse–Palais lemma, and the Palais–Smale compactness condition. From 1965 to 1967 Palais was a Sloan Research Fellowship, Sloan Fellow. In 1970 he was an invited speaker (''Banach manifolds of fiber bundle sections'') at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice. From 1965 to 1982 he was an editor for the ''Journal of Differential Geometry'' and from 1966 to 1969 an editor for the ''Transactions of the American Mathematical Society''. In 2010 he received a Lester R. Ford Award. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. retrieved 2013-05- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Smale
Stephen Smale (born July 15, 1930) is an American mathematician, known for his research in topology, dynamical systems and mathematical economics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 and spent more than three decades on the mathematics faculty of the University of California, Berkeley (1960–1961 and 1964–1995), where he currently is Professor Emeritus, with research interests in algorithms, numerical analysis and global analysis. Education and career Smale was born in Flint, Michigan and entered the University of Michigan in 1948. Initially, he was a good student, placing into an honors calculus sequence taught by Bob Thrall and earning himself A's. However, his sophomore and junior years were marred with mediocre grades, mostly Bs, Cs and even an F in nuclear physics. However, with some luck, Smale was accepted as a graduate student at the University of Michigan's mathematics department. Yet again, Smale performed poorly in his first years, earning a C average as a g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calculus Of Variations
The calculus of variations (or Variational Calculus) is a field of mathematical analysis that uses variations, which are small changes in functions and functionals, to find maxima and minima of functionals: mappings from a set of functions to the real numbers. Functionals are often expressed as definite integrals involving functions and their derivatives. Functions that maximize or minimize functionals may be found using the Euler–Lagrange equation of the calculus of variations. A simple example of such a problem is to find the curve of shortest length connecting two points. If there are no constraints, the solution is a straight line between the points. However, if the curve is constrained to lie on a surface in space, then the solution is less obvious, and possibly many solutions may exist. Such solutions are known as ''geodesics''. A related problem is posed by Fermat's principle: light follows the path of shortest optical length connecting two points, which depends up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critical Point (mathematics)
Critical point is a wide term used in many branches of mathematics. When dealing with functions of a real variable, a critical point is a point in the domain of the function where the function is either not differentiable or the derivative is equal to zero. When dealing with complex variables, a critical point is, similarly, a point in the function's domain where it is either not holomorphic or the derivative is equal to zero. Likewise, for a function of several real variables, a critical point is a value in its domain where the gradient is undefined or is equal to zero. The value of the function at a critical point is a critical value. This sort of definition extends to differentiable maps between and a critical point being, in this case, a point where the rank of the Jacobian matrix is not maximal. It extends further to differentiable maps between differentiable manifolds, as the points where the rank of the Jacobian matrix decreases. In this case, critical points are al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saddle Point
In mathematics, a saddle point or minimax point is a point on the surface of the graph of a function where the slopes (derivatives) in orthogonal directions are all zero (a critical point), but which is not a local extremum of the function. An example of a saddle point is when there is a critical point with a relative minimum along one axial direction (between peaks) and at a relative maximum along the crossing axis. However, a saddle point need not be in this form. For example, the function f(x,y) = x^2 + y^3 has a critical point at (0, 0) that is a saddle point since it is neither a relative maximum nor relative minimum, but it does not have a relative maximum or relative minimum in the y-direction. The name derives from the fact that the prototypical example in two dimensions is a surface that ''curves up'' in one direction, and ''curves down'' in a different direction, resembling a riding saddle or a mountain pass between two peaks forming a landform saddle. In te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Functional (mathematics)
In mathematics, a functional (as a noun) is a certain type of function. The exact definition of the term varies depending on the subfield (and sometimes even the author). * In linear algebra, it is synonymous with linear forms, which are linear mapping from a vector space V into its Field (mathematics), field of scalars (that is, an element of the dual space V^*) "Let ''E'' be a free module over a commutative ring ''A''. We view ''A'' as a free module of rank 1 over itself. By the dual module ''E''∨ of ''E'' we shall mean the module Hom(''E'', ''A''). Its elements will be called functionals. Thus a functional on ''E'' is an ''A''-linear map ''f'' : ''E'' → ''A''." * In functional analysis and related fields, it refers more generally to a mapping from a space X into the field of Real numbers, real or complex numbers. "A numerical function ''f''(''x'') defined on a normed linear space ''R'' will be called a ''functional''. A functional ''f''(''x'') is said to be ''linear'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proper Map
In mathematics, a function between topological spaces is called proper if inverse images of compact subsets are compact. In algebraic geometry, the analogous concept is called a proper morphism. Definition There are several competing definitions of a "proper function". Some authors call a function f : X \to Y between two topological spaces if the preimage of every compact set in Y is compact in X. Other authors call a map f if it is continuous and ; that is if it is a continuous closed map and the preimage of every point in Y is compact. The two definitions are equivalent if Y is locally compact and Hausdorff. Let f : X \to Y be a closed map, such that f^(y) is compact (in X) for all y \in Y. Let K be a compact subset of Y. It remains to show that f^(K) is compact. Let \left\ be an open cover of f^(K). Then for all k \in K this is also an open cover of f^(k). Since the latter is assumed to be compact, it has a finite subcover. In other words, for every k \in K, there exis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Function Space
In mathematics, a function space is a set of functions between two fixed sets. Often, the domain and/or codomain will have additional structure which is inherited by the function space. For example, the set of functions from any set into a vector space has a natural vector space structure given by pointwise addition and scalar multiplication. In other scenarios, the function space might inherit a topological or metric structure, hence the name function ''space''. In linear algebra Let be a vector space over a field and let be any set. The functions → can be given the structure of a vector space over where the operations are defined pointwise, that is, for any , : → , any in , and any in , define \begin (f+g)(x) &= f(x)+g(x) \\ (c\cdot f)(x) &= c\cdot f(x) \end When the domain has additional structure, one might consider instead the subset (or subspace) of all such functions which respect that structure. For example, if is also a vector space over , the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compactness
In mathematics, specifically general topology, compactness is a property that seeks to generalize the notion of a closed and bounded subset of Euclidean space by making precise the idea of a space having no "punctures" or "missing endpoints", i.e. that the space not exclude any ''limiting values'' of points. For example, the open interval (0,1) would not be compact because it excludes the limiting values of 0 and 1, whereas the closed interval ,1would be compact. Similarly, the space of rational numbers \mathbb is not compact, because it has infinitely many "punctures" corresponding to the irrational numbers, and the space of real numbers \mathbb is not compact either, because it excludes the two limiting values +\infty and -\infty. However, the ''extended'' real number line ''would'' be compact, since it contains both infinities. There are many ways to make this heuristic notion precise. These ways usually agree in a metric space, but may not be equivalent in other topologic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mountain Pass Theorem
The mountain pass theorem is an existence theorem from the calculus of variations, originally due to Antonio Ambrosetti and Paul Rabinowitz. Given certain conditions on a function, the theorem demonstrates the existence of a saddle point. The theorem is unusual in that there are many other theorems regarding the existence of extrema, but few regarding saddle points. Statement The assumptions of the theorem are: * I is a functional from a Hilbert space ''H'' to the reals, * I\in C^1(H,\mathbb) and I' is Lipschitz continuous on bounded subsets of ''H'', * I satisfies the Palais–Smale compactness condition, * I 0, * there exist positive constants ''r'' and ''a'' such that I geq a if \Vert u\Vert =r, and * there exists v\in H with \Vert v\Vert >r such that I leq 0. If we define: :\Gamma=\ and: :c=\inf_\max_ I mathbf(t) then the conclusion of the theorem is that ''c'' is a critical value of ''I''. Visualization The intuition behind the theorem is in the name "mountain pass." ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fréchet Derivative
In mathematics, the Fréchet derivative is a derivative defined on normed spaces. Named after Maurice Fréchet, it is commonly used to generalize the derivative of a real-valued function of a single real variable to the case of a vector-valued function of multiple real variables, and to define the functional derivative used widely in the calculus of variations. Generally, it extends the idea of the derivative from real-valued functions of one real variable to functions on normed spaces. The Fréchet derivative should be contrasted to the more general Gateaux derivative which is a generalization of the classical directional derivative. The Fréchet derivative has applications to nonlinear problems throughout mathematical analysis and physical sciences, particularly to the calculus of variations and much of nonlinear analysis and nonlinear functional analysis. Definition Let V and W be normed vector spaces, and U\subseteq V be an open subset of V. A function f : U \to W is ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilbert Space
In mathematics, Hilbert spaces (named after David Hilbert) allow generalizing the methods of linear algebra and calculus from (finite-dimensional) Euclidean vector spaces to spaces that may be infinite-dimensional. Hilbert spaces arise naturally and frequently in mathematics and physics, typically as function spaces. Formally, a Hilbert space is a vector space equipped with an inner product that defines a distance function for which the space is a complete metric space. The earliest Hilbert spaces were studied from this point of view in the first decade of the 20th century by David Hilbert, Erhard Schmidt, and Frigyes Riesz. They are indispensable tools in the theories of partial differential equations, quantum mechanics, Fourier analysis (which includes applications to signal processing and heat transfer), and ergodic theory (which forms the mathematical underpinning of thermodynamics). John von Neumann coined the term ''Hilbert space'' for the abstract concept that under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
