Dirichlet’s Principle, Conformal Mapping, and Minimal Surfaces
Dirichlet’s Principle, Conformal Mapping, and Minimal Surfaces

Author: R. Courant

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1461299179

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It has always been a temptation for mathematicians to present the crystallized product of their thoughts as a deductive general theory and to relegate the individual mathematical phenomenon into the role of an example. The reader who submits to the dogmatic form will be easily indoctrinated. Enlightenment, however, must come from an understanding of motives; live mathematical development springs from specific natural problems which can be easily understood, but whose solutions are difficult and demand new methods of more general significance. The present book deals with subjects of this category. It is written in a style which, as the author hopes, expresses adequately the balance and tension between the individuality of mathematical objects and the generality of mathematical methods. The author has been interested in Dirichlet's Principle and its various applications since his days as a student under David Hilbert. Plans for writing a book on these topics were revived when Jesse Douglas' work suggested to him a close connection between Dirichlet's Principle and basic problems concerning minimal sur faces. But war work and other duties intervened; even now, after much delay, the book appears in a much less polished and complete form than the author would have liked."

Minimal Surfaces
Minimal Surfaces

Author: Ulrich Dierkes

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-08-16

Total Pages: 699

ISBN-13: 3642116981

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Minimal Surfaces is the first volume of a three volume treatise on minimal surfaces (Grundlehren Nr. 339-341). Each volume can be read and studied independently of the others. The central theme is boundary value problems for minimal surfaces. The treatise is a substantially revised and extended version of the monograph Minimal Surfaces I, II (Grundlehren Nr. 295 & 296). The first volume begins with an exposition of basic ideas of the theory of surfaces in three-dimensional Euclidean space, followed by an introduction of minimal surfaces as stationary points of area, or equivalently, as surfaces of zero mean curvature. The final definition of a minimal surface is that of a nonconstant harmonic mapping X: \Omega\to\R^3 which is conformally parametrized on \Omega\subset\R^2 and may have branch points. Thereafter the classical theory of minimal surfaces is surveyed, comprising many examples, a treatment of Björling ́s initial value problem, reflection principles, a formula of the second variation of area, the theorems of Bernstein, Heinz, Osserman, and Fujimoto. The second part of this volume begins with a survey of Plateau ́s problem and of some of its modifications. One of the main features is a new, completely elementary proof of the fact that area A and Dirichlet integral D have the same infimum in the class C(G) of admissible surfaces spanning a prescribed contour G. This leads to a new, simplified solution of the simultaneous problem of minimizing A and D in C(G), as well as to new proofs of the mapping theorems of Riemann and Korn-Lichtenstein, and to a new solution of the simultaneous Douglas problem for A and D where G consists of several closed components. Then basic facts of stable minimal surfaces are derived; this is done in the context of stable H-surfaces (i.e. of stable surfaces of prescribed mean curvature H), especially of cmc-surfaces (H = const), and leads to curvature estimates for stable, immersed cmc-surfaces and to Nitsche ́s uniqueness theorem and Tomi ́s finiteness result. In addition, a theory of unstable solutions of Plateau ́s problems is developed which is based on Courant ́s mountain pass lemma. Furthermore, Dirichlet ́s problem for nonparametric H-surfaces is solved, using the solution of Plateau ́s problem for H-surfaces and the pertinent estimates.

Geometry V
Geometry V

Author: Robert Osserman

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-14

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 3662034840

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Few people outside of mathematics are aware of the varieties of mathemat ical experience - the degree to which different mathematical subjects have different and distinctive flavors, often attractive to some mathematicians and repellant to others. The particular flavor of the subject of minimal surfaces seems to lie in a combination of the concreteness of the objects being studied, their origin and relation to the physical world, and the way they lie at the intersection of so many different parts of mathematics. In the past fifteen years a new component has been added: the availability of computer graphics to provide illustrations that are both mathematically instructive and esthetically pleas ing. During the course of the twentieth century, two major thrusts have played a seminal role in the evolution of minimal surface theory. The first is the work on the Plateau Problem, whose initial phase culminated in the solution for which Jesse Douglas was awarded one of the first two Fields Medals in 1936. (The other Fields Medal that year went to Lars V. Ahlfors for his contributions to complex analysis, including his important new insights in Nevanlinna Theory.) The second was the innovative approach to partial differential equations by Serge Bernstein, which led to the celebrated Bernstein's Theorem, stating that the only solution to the minimal surface equation over the whole plane is the trivial solution: a linear function.

Conformal Mapping
Conformal Mapping

Author: Zeev Nehari

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2012-05-23

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0486145034

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Conformal mapping is a field in which pure and applied mathematics are both involved. This book tries to bridge the gulf that many times divides these two disciplines by combining the theoretical and practical approaches to the subject. It will interest the pure mathematician, engineer, physicist, and applied mathematician. The potential theory and complex function theory necessary for a full treatment of conformal mapping are developed in the first four chapters, so the reader needs no other text on complex variables. These chapters cover harmonic functions, analytic functions, the complex integral calculus, and families of analytic functions. Included here are discussions of Green's formula, the Poisson formula, the Cauchy-Riemann equations, Cauchy's theorem, the Laurent series, and the Residue theorem. The final three chapters consider in detail conformal mapping of simply-connected domains, mapping properties of special functions, and conformal mapping of multiply-connected domains. The coverage here includes such topics as the Schwarz lemma, the Riemann mapping theorem, the Schwarz-Christoffel formula, univalent functions, the kernel function, elliptic functions, univalent functions, the kernel function, elliptic functions, the Schwarzian s-functions, canonical domains, and bounded functions. There are many problems and exercises, making the book useful for both self-study and classroom use. The author, former professor of mathematics at Carnegie-Mellon University, has designed the book as a semester's introduction to functions of a complex variable followed by a one-year graduate course in conformal mapping. The material is presented simply and clearly, and the only prerequisite is a good working knowledge of advanced calculus.

Minimal Surfaces
Minimal Surfaces

Author: A. T. Fomenko

Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9780821841167

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This book contains recent results from a group focusing on minimal surfaces in the Moscow State University seminar on modern geometrical methods, headed by A. V. Bolsinov, A. T. Fomenko, and V. V. Trofimov. The papers collected here fall into three areas: one-dimensional minimal graphs on Riemannian surfaces and the Steiner problem, two-dimensional minimal surfaces and surfaces of constant mean curvature in three-dimensional Euclidean space, and multidimensional globally minimal and harmonic surfaces in Riemannian manifolds. The volume opens with an exposition of several important problems in the modern theory of minimal surfaces that will be of interest to newcomers to the field. Prepared with attention to clarity and accessibility, these papers will appeal to mathematicians, physicists, and other researchers interested in the application of geometrical methods to specific problems.

Elements of the geometry and topology of minimal surfaces in three-dimensional space
Elements of the geometry and topology of minimal surfaces in three-dimensional space

Author: A. T. Fomenko

Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 0821837915

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This book grew out of lectures presented to students of mathematics, physics, and mechanics by A. T. Fomenko at Moscow University, under the auspices of the Moscow Mathematical Society. The book describes modern and visual aspects of the theory of minimal, two-dimensional surfaces in three-dimensional space. The main topics covered are: topological properties of minimal surfaces, stable and unstable minimal films, classical examples, the Morse-Smale index of minimal two-surfaces in Euclidean space, and minimal films in Lobachevskian space. Requiring only a standard first-year calculus and elementary notions of geometry, this book brings the reader rapidly into this fascinating branch of modern geometry.

Complete and Compact Minimal Surfaces
Complete and Compact Minimal Surfaces

Author: Kichoon Yang

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 9400910150

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'Et moi ..., si j'avait su comment en reveni.r, One service mathematics has rendered the je n'y serais point aile.' human race. It has put common sense back Jules Verne where it belongs. on the topmost shelf next to the dusty canister labelled 'discarded non 111e series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. Eric T. Bell able to do something with it. O. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d'etre of this series.