Re: [HM] Partial Differential Equations--when did it become a "field"

Martin Krieger (krieger@almaak.usc.edu)
Tue, 29 Dec 1998 20:59:45 -0800 (PST)

Further looking gives credit to DuBois Raymond, 1889, for the division.
Euler for PDEs, Bernstein for apriori estimates.
There is a good article by Brezis and Browder in the current Advances in
Math. Still, it is hard to be sure when it was seen as a subject, as
such--but it must be by 1800 or so.
MK

On Wed, 30 Dec 1998, J F Harper wrote:

> On Sat, 26 Dec 1998, Roger Cooke wrote:
>
>> I believe the classification of pde's as hyperbolic, elliptic, and
>> parabolic is due to IG Petrovsky (1901--1973).
>>
>
> When? It's in Hadamard's "Lectures on Cauchy's problem in linear partial
> differential equations" (written 1921 publ. 1923 Yale) with no indication
> it wasn't already well-known then.
>
> John Harper, School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences,
> Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
> e-mail john.harper@vuw.ac.nz phone (+64)(4)471 5341 fax (+64)(4)495 5045