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Eikonal Equation
An eikonal equation (from Greek εἰκών, image) is a non-linear first-order partial differential equation that is encountered in problems of wave propagation. The classical eikonal equation in geometric optics is a differential equation of the form where x lies in an open subset of \mathbb^n, n(x) is a positive function, \nabla denotes the gradient, and , \cdot , is the Euclidean norm. The function n is given and one seeks solutions u . In the context of geometric optics, the function n is the refractive index of the medium. More generally, an eikonal equation is an equation of the form where H is a function of 2n variables. Here the function H is given, and u is the solution. If H(x,y)= , y, - n(x) , then equation () becomes (). Eikonal equations naturally arise in the WKB method and the study of Maxwell's equations. Eikonal equations provide a link between physical (wave) optics and geometric (ray) optics. One fast computational algorith ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic period (), and the Classical period (). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. From the Hellenistic period (), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek, which is regarded as a separate historical stage, although its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek developed into Koine. Dia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre-Louis Lions
Pierre-Louis Lions (; born 11 August 1956) is a French people, French mathematician. He is known for a number of contributions to the fields of partial differential equations and the calculus of variations. He was a recipient of the 1994 Fields Medal and the 1991 Prize of the Altria, Philip Morris tobacco and cigarette company. Biography Lions graduated from the École Normale Supérieure, École normale supérieure in 1977, and received his doctorate from the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in 1979. He holds the position of Professor of ''Partial differential equations and their applications'' at the Collège de France in Paris as well as a position at École Polytechnique. Since 2014, he has also been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. In 1979, Lions married Lila Laurenti, with whom he has one son. Lions' parents were Andrée Olivier and the renowned mathematician Jacques-Louis Lions, at the time a professor at the University of Nancy, and from 1991 through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Basis
In mathematics, the standard basis (also called natural basis or canonical basis) of a coordinate vector space (such as \mathbb^n or \mathbb^n) is the set of vectors whose components are all zero, except one that equals 1. For example, in the case of the Euclidean plane \mathbb^2 formed by the pairs of real numbers, the standard basis is formed by the vectors :\mathbf_x = (1,0),\quad \mathbf_y = (0,1). Similarly, the standard basis for the three-dimensional space \mathbb^3 is formed by vectors :\mathbf_x = (1,0,0),\quad \mathbf_y = (0,1,0),\quad \mathbf_z=(0,0,1). Here the vector e''x'' points in the ''x'' direction, the vector e''y'' points in the ''y'' direction, and the vector e''z'' points in the ''z'' direction. There are several common notations for standard-basis vectors, including , , , and . These vectors are sometimes written with a hat to emphasize their status as unit vectors (standard unit vectors). These vectors are a basis in the sense that any other vector can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyperplane
In geometry, a hyperplane is a subspace whose dimension is one less than that of its ''ambient space''. For example, if a space is 3-dimensional then its hyperplanes are the 2-dimensional planes, while if the space is 2-dimensional, its hyperplanes are the 1-dimensional lines. This notion can be used in any general space in which the concept of the dimension of a subspace is defined. In different settings, hyperplanes may have different properties. For instance, a hyperplane of an -dimensional affine space is a flat subset with dimension and it separates the space into two half spaces. While a hyperplane of an -dimensional projective space does not have this property. The difference in dimension between a subspace and its ambient space is known as the codimension of with respect to . Therefore, a necessary and sufficient condition for to be a hyperplane in is for to have codimension one in . Technical description In geometry, a hyperplane of an ''n''-dimensi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Method Of Characteristics
In mathematics, the method of characteristics is a technique for solving partial differential equations. Typically, it applies to first-order equations, although more generally the method of characteristics is valid for any hyperbolic partial differential equation. The method is to reduce a partial differential equation to a family of ordinary differential equations along which the solution can be integrated from some initial data given on a suitable hypersurface. Characteristics of first-order partial differential equation For a first-order PDE (partial differential equation), the method of characteristics discovers curves (called characteristic curves or just characteristics) along which the PDE becomes an ordinary differential equation (ODE). Once the ODE is found, it can be solved along the characteristic curves and transformed into a solution for the original PDE. For the sake of simplicity, we confine our attention to the case of a function of two independent variables ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fast Sweeping Method
In applied mathematics, the fast sweeping method is a numerical method for solving boundary value problems of the Eikonal equation. : , \nabla u(\mathbf), = \frac 1 \text \mathbf \in \Omega : u(\mathbf) = 0 \text \mathbf \in \partial \Omega where \Omega is an open set in \mathbb^n, f(\mathbf) is a function with positive values, \partial \Omega is a well-behaved boundary of the open set and , \cdot, is the Euclidean norm. The fast sweeping method is an iterative method which uses upwind difference for discretization and uses Gauss–Seidel iterations with alternating sweeping ordering to solve the discretized Eikonal equation on a rectangular grid. The origins of this approach lie in control theory. Although fast sweeping methods have existed in control theory, it was first proposed for Eikonal equations by Hongkai Zhao, an applied mathematician at the University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bellman–Ford Algorithm
The Bellman–Ford algorithm is an algorithm that computes shortest paths from a single source vertex to all of the other vertices in a weighted digraph. It is slower than Dijkstra's algorithm for the same problem, but more versatile, as it is capable of handling graphs in which some of the edge weights are negative numbers. The algorithm was first proposed by , but is instead named after Richard Bellman and Lester Ford Jr., who published it in 1958 and 1956, respectively. Edward F. Moore also published a variation of the algorithm in 1959, and for this reason it is also sometimes called the Bellman–Ford–Moore algorithm. Negative edge weights are found in various applications of graphs, hence the usefulness of this algorithm. If a graph contains a "negative cycle" (i.e. a cycle whose edges sum to a negative value) that is reachable from the source, then there is no ''cheapest'' path: any path that has a point on the negative cycle can be made cheaper by one more walk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dijkstra's Algorithm
Dijkstra's algorithm ( ) is an algorithm for finding the shortest paths between nodes in a graph, which may represent, for example, road networks. It was conceived by computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra in 1956 and published three years later. The algorithm exists in many variants. Dijkstra's original algorithm found the shortest path between two given nodes, but a more common variant fixes a single node as the "source" node and finds shortest paths from the source to all other nodes in the graph, producing a shortest-path tree. For a given source node in the graph, the algorithm finds the shortest path between that node and every other. It can also be used for finding the shortest paths from a single node to a single destination node by stopping the algorithm once the shortest path to the destination node has been determined. For example, if the nodes of the graph represent cities and edge path costs represent driving distances between pairs of cities connected by a dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regular Grid
A regular grid is a tessellation of ''n''-dimensional Euclidean space by congruent parallelotopes (e.g. bricks). Its opposite is irregular grid. Grids of this type appear on graph paper and may be used in finite element analysis, finite volume methods, finite difference methods, and in general for discretization of parameter spaces. Since the derivatives of field variables can be conveniently expressed as finite differences, structured grids mainly appear in finite difference methods. Unstructured grids offer more flexibility than structured grids and hence are very useful in finite element and finite volume methods. Each cell in the grid can be addressed by index (i, j) in two dimensions or (i, j, k) in three dimensions, and each vertex has coordinates (i\cdot dx, j\cdot dy) in 2D or (i\cdot dx, j\cdot dy, k\cdot dz) in 3D for some real numbers ''dx'', ''dy'', and ''dz'' representing the grid spacing. Related grids A Cartesian grid is a special case where the elements are uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finite Element Method
The finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat transfer, fluid flow, mass transport, and electromagnetic potential. The FEM is a general numerical method for solving partial differential equations in two or three space variables (i.e., some boundary value problems). To solve a problem, the FEM subdivides a large system into smaller, simpler parts that are called finite elements. This is achieved by a particular space discretization in the space dimensions, which is implemented by the construction of a mesh of the object: the numerical domain for the solution, which has a finite number of points. The finite element method formulation of a boundary value problem finally results in a system of algebraic equations. The method approximates the unknown function over the domain. The sim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Causality
Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. In general, a process has many causes, which are also said to be ''causal factors'' for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Some writers have held that causality is metaphysically prior to notions of time and space. Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses. As such a basic concept, it is more apt as an explanation of other concepts of progression than as something to be explained by others more basic. The concept is like those of agency and efficacy. For this reason, a leap of intuition may be needed to grasp it. Accordin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shortest Path Problem
In graph theory, the shortest path problem is the problem of finding a path between two vertices (or nodes) in a graph such that the sum of the weights of its constituent edges is minimized. The problem of finding the shortest path between two intersections on a road map may be modeled as a special case of the shortest path problem in graphs, where the vertices correspond to intersections and the edges correspond to road segments, each weighted by the length of the segment. Definition The shortest path problem can be defined for graphs whether undirected, directed, or mixed. It is defined here for undirected graphs; for directed graphs the definition of path requires that consecutive vertices be connected by an appropriate directed edge. Two vertices are adjacent when they are both incident to a common edge. A path in an undirected graph is a sequence of vertices P = ( v_1, v_2, \ldots, v_n ) \in V \times V \times \cdots \times V such that v_i is adjacent to v_ for 1 \leq i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
