Karl Edwin Gustafson | |
---|---|
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Maryland |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Mathematics |
Sub-discipline | Applied mathematics |
Institutions | University of Colorado,Boulder |
Website | https://euclid.colorado.edu/~gustafs/ |
Karl Edwin Gustafson is an American mathematician. Gustafson spent most of his career at the University of Colorado,Boulder,in the Department of Mathematics. He is known for developing the antieigenvalue theory in applied mathematics.
Gustafson received two Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Colorado in 1958 (Engineering Physics/Applied Mathematics and Business Finance) before a PhD in Mathematics in 1965 from the University of Maryland. He performed post-doctoral work in Switzerland and Italy as a recipient of an NSF-NATO grant,held an assistant professor position at the University of Minnesota,and then moved back to Colorado where he was Associate Professor and then Professor of Mathematics at the University of Colorado [1] for over 50 years. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 2020. [2]
Gustafson published articles and books in many areas of mathematics,both applied and pure,and in physics and the mathematics of finance. [3] Early in his career he developed the antieigenvalue theory in the area of applied mathematics. [4] He returned to this topic in 2012 with a book exploring how the theory applies in the contexts of numerical analysis,wavelets,statistics,quantum mechanics,finance and optimization. [5] Gustafson wrote an introductory guide to partial differential equations (Introduction to Partial Differential Equations and Hilbert Space Methods) that was published in three editions in the United States [6] [7] [8] and in various versions in three foreign countries. [9] [10] [11] Gustafson also published academic books in other areas of mathematics [12] and in related subjects such as quantum mechanics [13] and fluid dynamics. [14] [15] In 2022,he became the honoree of an endowed faculty chair at the University of Colorado. The funds for the chair came from an anonymous donor who was a former student of Gustafson's. The chair will be known as the Karl Gustafson Endowed Chair of Quantum Engineering and will be embedded in the Department of Electrical,Computer and Energy Engineering within the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences,at Gustafson's request. Gustafson proposed that the chair be part of the College of Engineering in hopes that the faculty who hold the chair might have a "fundamental breakthrough in some way other than just writing papers," according to Gustafson. [16]
Gustafson also had many interests outside of academia. As a young rock climber in Colorado in the 1950s,Gustafson and colleagues were at the forefront of the sport of free climbing and completed several first ascents of local rock faces and mountain ridges in the area (North Face of The Matron,North Face of Schmoe's Nose and the Snowmass-Capitol Ridge). [17] [18] Gustafson published a memoir in 2012,entitled The Crossing of Heaven,which recounted,among other life experiences,more of his mountaineering adventures and his role in top-secret (at the time) military intelligence work during the Cold War,including writing the software in 1960 for the first US spy satellite. [19] After surviving a hemorrhagic stroke in 2016,Gustafson wrote a second memoir,Reverberations of a Stroke,concerning his medical recovery and return to teaching mathematics at the university. [20]
The mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics are those mathematical formalisms that permit a rigorous description of quantum mechanics. This mathematical formalism uses mainly a part of functional analysis,especially Hilbert spaces,which are a kind of linear space. Such are distinguished from mathematical formalisms for physics theories developed prior to the early 1900s by the use of abstract mathematical structures,such as infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces,and operators on these spaces. In brief,values of physical observables such as energy and momentum were no longer considered as values of functions on phase space,but as eigenvalues;more precisely as spectral values of linear operators in Hilbert space.
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. It is the foundation of all quantum physics,which includes quantum chemistry,quantum field theory,quantum technology,and quantum information science.
Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions,limits,and related theories,such as differentiation,integration,measure,infinite sequences,series,and analytic functions.
The Schrödinger equation is a partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system. Its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of quantum mechanics. It is named after Erwin Schrödinger,who postulated the equation in 1925 and published it in 1926,forming the basis for the work that resulted in his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.
Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The Journal of Mathematical Physics defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and for the formulation of physical theories". An alternative definition would also include those mathematics that are inspired by physics,known as physical mathematics.
In physics,an observable is a physical property or physical quantity that can be measured. In classical mechanics,an observable is a real-valued "function" on the set of all possible system states,e.g.,position and momentum. In quantum mechanics,an observable is an operator,or gauge,where the property of the quantum state can be determined by some sequence of operations. For example,these operations might involve submitting the system to various electromagnetic fields and eventually reading a value.
In science and especially in mathematical studies,a variational principle is one that enables a problem to be solved using calculus of variations,which concerns finding functions that optimize the values of quantities that depend on those functions. For example,the problem of determining the shape of a hanging chain suspended at both ends—a catenary—can be solved using variational calculus,and in this case,the variational principle is the following:The solution is a function that minimizes the gravitational potential energy of the chain.
The superposition principle,also known as superposition property,states that,for all linear systems,the net response caused by two or more stimuli is the sum of the responses that would have been caused by each stimulus individually. So that if input A produces response X,and input B produces response Y,then input (A + B) produces response (X + Y).
In mathematics,a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications,the functions generally represent physical quantities,the derivatives represent their rates of change,and the differential equation defines a relationship between the two. Such relations are common;therefore,differential equations play a prominent role in many disciplines including engineering,physics,economics,and biology.
In mathematics,generalized functions are objects extending the notion of functions. There is more than one recognized theory,for example the theory of distributions. Generalized functions are especially useful in making discontinuous functions more like smooth functions,and describing discrete physical phenomena such as point charges. They are applied extensively,especially in physics and engineering.
Franz Rellich was an Austrian-German mathematician. He made important contributions in mathematical physics,in particular for the foundations of quantum mechanics and for the theory of partial differential equations. The Rellich–Kondrachov theorem is named after him.
In mathematics,Hilbert spaces allow the methods of linear algebra and calculus to be generalized from (finite-dimensional) Euclidean vector spaces to spaces that may be infinite-dimensional. Hilbert spaces arise naturally and frequently in mathematics and physics,typically as function spaces. Formally,a Hilbert space is a vector space equipped with an inner product that induces a distance function for which the space is a complete metric space.
Burton Wendroff is an American applied mathematician known for his contributions to the development of numerical methods for the solution of hyperbolic partial differential equations. The Lax–Wendroff method for the solution of hyperbolic PDE is named for Wendroff.
Sergio Albeverio is a Swiss mathematician and mathematical physicist working in numerous fields of mathematics and its applications. In particular he is known for his work in probability theory,analysis,mathematical physics,and in the areas algebra,geometry,number theory,as well as in applications,from natural to social-economic sciences.
Israel Michael Sigal is a Canadian mathematician specializing in mathematical physics. He is a professor at the University of Toronto Department of Mathematics.
Robert C. Hermann was an American mathematician and mathematical physicist. In the 1960s Hermann worked on elementary particle physics and quantum field theory,and published books which revealed the interconnections between vector bundles on Riemannian manifolds and gauge theory in physics,before these interconnections became "common knowledge" among physicists in the 1970s.
The Koopman–von Neumann (KvN) theory is a description of classical mechanics as an operatorial theory similar to quantum mechanics,based on a Hilbert space of complex,square-integrable wavefunctions. As its name suggests,the KvN theory is loosely related to work by Bernard Koopman and John von Neumann in 1931 and 1932,respectively. As explained in this entry,however,the historical origins of the theory and its name are complicated.
The CEREMADE is a research centre in Mathematics within UniversitéParis-Dauphine. It was created in 1970.
Peter John Olver is a British-American mathematician working in differential geometry.
Lokenath Debnath was an Indian-American mathematician.
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