About this ebook
This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the Calculus of Variations and its use in modelling mechanics and physics problems. Presenting a geometric approach to the subject, it progressively guides the reader through this very active branch of mathematics, accompanying key statements with a huge variety of exercises, some of them solved. Stressing the need to overcome limitations of the initial point of view, and emphasising the interconnectivity of various branches of mathematics (algebra, analysis and geometry), the book includes some advanced material to challenge the most motivated students. Systematic, short historical notes provide details on the subject’s odyssey, and how new tools have been developed over the last two centuries. This English translation updates a set of notes for a course first given at the École polytechnique in 1987. It will be accessible to graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Ratings and reviews
4.0
2 reviews
About the author
Jean-Pierre Bourguignon is the Nicolaas Kuiper Honorary Professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, Bures-sur-Yvette, France, where he was director from 1994 to 2013. His research interests are in differential geometry, in particular its relations with partial differential equations and mathematical physics. He was president of the Société Mathématique de France (1990–1992) and of the European Mathematical Society (1995–1998). He received the Paul Langevin prize from the Académie des Sciences de Paris in 1987 and the Physical Sciences and Mathematics Prize from the Comité du Rayonnement Français in 1997.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
