Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Classical mechanics. Field theory --- Differential geometry. Global analysis --- Algebres convexes --- Convex domains --- Convexe algebra's --- Hamiltonian systems --- Hamiltonsystemen --- Systèmes hamiltoniens --- Algèbres convexes --- Algèbres convexes --- Systèmes hamiltoniens

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Optimists believe this is the best of all possible worlds. And pessimists fear that might really be the case. But what 'is' the best of all possible worlds? How do we define it? Is it the world that operates the most efficiently? Or the one in which most people are comfortable and content? Questions such as these have preoccupied philosophers and theologians for ages, but there was a time, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when scientists and mathematicians felt they could provide the answer. This book is their story. Ivar Ekeland here takes the reader on a journey through scientific attempts to envision the best of all possible worlds. He begins with the French physicist Maupertuis, whose least action principle asserted that everything in nature occurs in the way that requires the least possible action. This idea, Ekeland shows, was a pivotal breakthrough in mathematics, because it was the first expression of the concept of 'optimization', or the creation of systems that are the most efficient or functional. Although the least action principle was later elaborated on and overshadowed by the theories of Leonhard Euler and Gottfried Leibniz, the concept of optimization that emerged from it is an important one that touches virtually every scientific discipline today. Tracing the profound impact of optimization and the unexpected ways in which it has influenced the study of mathematics, biology, economics, and even politics, Ekeland reveals throughout how the idea of optimization has driven some of our greatest intellectual breakthroughs. The result is a dazzling display of erudition& one that will be essential reading for popular-science buffs and historians of science alike.

Ethics --- Human behavior --- Logic, Symbolic and mathematical --- 517.1 --- Science --- Mathematics --- Ethics. --- Human behavior. --- Logic, Symbolic and mathematical. --- Mathematical analysis. --- Mathematics.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Convex analysis and variational problems

Functional analysis --- Mathematical optimization --- Convex functions --- Calculus of variations --- Mathematical optimization. --- Convex functions. --- Calculus of variations. --- 517 --- 517 Analysis --- Analysis --- Optimisation mathématique --- Fonctions convexes --- Calcul des variations --- ELSEVIER-B EPUB-LIV-FT --- Isoperimetrical problems --- Variations, Calculus of --- Maxima and minima --- Functions, Convex --- Functions of real variables --- Optimization (Mathematics) --- Optimization techniques --- Optimization theory --- Systems optimization --- Mathematical analysis --- Operations research --- Simulation methods --- System analysis

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Stochastic processes --- Probabilities --- Mathematical statistics