19/09/2008, 14:00 — 16:00 — Sala P3.10, Pavilhão de Matemática
Bernd Silbermann, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany
100 years Galerkin's method
There are some reasons to assume that Galerkin's method (or what
is called now Galerkin's method) was born about 100 years ago. It
is not quite clear to whom one has to adress the priority, but
without doubt, Bubnov, Galerkin, Ritz and Simic belong to the
circle of main actors. Interestingly enough, the first idea of
Galerkin's method was created in order to solve approximately some
biharmonic problems occuring in the theory of thin plates. I shall
try to describe in short a part of these developments which then
had a considerable influence on forming Numerical Mathematics both
for biharmonic problems and yet for more general settings.
Subsequently I will mention some theoretical concepts of projection
and more general approximation methods for solving operator
equations and then pass back to biharmonic problems. Especially I
will discuss a method of approximate solution of such problems
based on function theory considerations.