All Questions
Tagged with terminology differential-equations
8
questions
2
votes
0
answers
205
views
The origin of $∂^2=0$ and $d^2=0$
I know that formula $∂^2=0$ and $d^2=0$ very important in the homology and cohomology theory. And I understand that this formula was generated from the process of finding a solution to the partial ...
- 309
10
votes
1
answer
2k
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What is the origin of the "Japanese bracket"?
In discussions of Sobolev spaces one often sees the Japanese bracket, $$\langle x \rangle = (1+|x|^2)^{1/2},$$ as useful shorthand.
I was not easily able to find information about this term.
(1) What ...
- 211
7
votes
1
answer
2k
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What is the etymology of "phase space" of a dynamical system?
The state space of a dynamical system is often called a "phase space". What is the etymology of this?
(Note that I'm not asking about the history of the concept, but rather about the history of the ...
- 181
2
votes
1
answer
163
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Why was Indicial equations named so?
In ODE, in Frobenius method, there's an equation called "Indicial Equation." Is there any particular contextual/historical reason that it is named so?
- 29
4
votes
2
answers
369
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Origin of the terminology “trace operator” related to boundary-value problems for PDEs
Important results in the theory of PDEs regarding boundary-value problems are trace and extension theorems. Since the trace operator (not to be confused with the trace from linear algebra) essentially ...
- 289
6
votes
1
answer
483
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Who came up with the link between the spectrum of an operator and the poles of a meromorphic function?
From Dieudonné's "History of Functional Analysis" I learned that Picard in 1893 gave a characterization of an eigenvalue of the Laplacian as the simple pole of a meromorphic function.
Is there an ...
- 1,394
7
votes
3
answers
404
views
source of "logistic growth"?
I've been trying to find the source of the name of the DE modelling population growth known as logistic growth, for some time: why "Logistic" ? So far all my attempts to research it have hit dead ends ...
- 484
5
votes
1
answer
3k
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What is the origin of the term "Ordinary Differential Equation"?
Who first used the term "Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE)"? Is it known why the word "ordinary" is used here? What makes an ODE "ordinary"?
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