Laplace (disambiguation)

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Pierre-Simon Laplace was a French mathematician and astronomer.

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Laplace, LaPlace or La Place may also refer to:

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Control theory is a field of control engineering and applied mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a desired state, while minimizing any delay, overshoot, or steady-state error and ensuring a level of control stability; often with the aim to achieve a degree of optimality.

In mathematics, the Laplace transform, named after its discoverer Pierre-Simon Laplace, is an integral transform that converts a function of a real variable to a function of a complex variable . The transform has many applications in science and engineering because it is a tool for solving differential equations. In particular, it transforms ordinary differential equations into algebraic equations and convolution into multiplication. For suitable functions f, the Laplace transform is the integral

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Partial differential equation</span> Type of differential equation

In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which computes a function between various partial derivatives of a multivariable function.

Normal(s) or The Normal(s) may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathematical physics</span> Application of mathematical methods to problems in physics

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.

In mathematics, the Laplace operator or Laplacian is a differential operator given by the divergence of the gradient of a scalar function on Euclidean space. It is usually denoted by the symbols , (where is the nabla operator), or . In a Cartesian coordinate system, the Laplacian is given by the sum of second partial derivatives of the function with respect to each independent variable. In other coordinate systems, such as cylindrical and spherical coordinates, the Laplacian also has a useful form. Informally, the Laplacian Δf (p) of a function f at a point p measures by how much the average value of f over small spheres or balls centered at p deviates from f (p).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poisson's equation</span> Expression frequently encountered in mathematical physics, generalization of Laplaces equation.

Poisson's equation is an elliptic partial differential equation of broad utility in theoretical physics. For example, the solution to Poisson's equation is the potential field caused by a given electric charge or mass density distribution; with the potential field known, one can then calculate electrostatic or gravitational (force) field. It is a generalization of Laplace's equation, which is also frequently seen in physics. The equation is named after French mathematician and physicist Siméon Denis Poisson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre-Simon Laplace</span> French polymath (1749–1827)

Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume Mécanique céleste (1799–1825). This work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. In statistics, the Bayesian interpretation of probability was developed mainly by Laplace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George William Hill</span> American mathematical astronomer

George William Hill was an American astronomer and mathematician. Working independently and largely in isolation from the wider scientific community, he made major contributions to celestial mechanics and to the theory of ordinary differential equations. The importance of his work was explicitly acknowledged by Henri Poincaré in 1905. In 1909 Hill was awarded the Royal Society's Copley Medal, "on the ground of his researches in mathematical astronomy". Today, he is chiefly remembered for the Hill differential equation.

In mathematics, an integral transform maps a function from its original function space into another function space via integration, where some of the properties of the original function might be more easily characterized and manipulated than in the original function space. The transformed function can generally be mapped back to the original function space using the inverse transform.

In mathematics, Bäcklund transforms or Bäcklund transformations relate partial differential equations and their solutions. They are an important tool in soliton theory and integrable systems. A Bäcklund transform is typically a system of first order partial differential equations relating two functions, and often depending on an additional parameter. It implies that the two functions separately satisfy partial differential equations, and each of the two functions is then said to be a Bäcklund transformation of the other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terence Tao</span> Australian and American mathematician (born 1975)

Terence Chi-Shen Tao is an Australian-born mathematician. He is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he holds the James and Carol Collins chair. His research includes topics in harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, algebraic combinatorics, arithmetic combinatorics, geometric combinatorics, probability theory, compressed sensing and analytic number theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre-Louis Lions</span> French mathematician (born 1956)

Pierre-Louis Lions is a French mathematician. He is known for a number of contributions to the fields of partial differential equations and the calculus of variations. He was a recipient of the 1994 Fields Medal and the 1991 Prize of the Philip Morris tobacco and cigarette company.

In physics, the Young–Laplace equation is an algebraic equation that describes the capillary pressure difference sustained across the interface between two static fluids, such as water and air, due to the phenomenon of surface tension or wall tension, although use of the latter is only applicable if assuming that the wall is very thin. The Young–Laplace equation relates the pressure difference to the shape of the surface or wall and it is fundamentally important in the study of static capillary surfaces. It's a statement of normal stress balance for static fluids meeting at an interface, where the interface is treated as a surface :

Hadamard may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zofia Szmydt</span> Polish mathematician

Zofia Szmydt was a Polish mathematician working in the areas of differential equations, potential theory and the theory of distributions. She was a winner of the Stefan Banach Prize for mathematics in 1956.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Bruce Paris</span> British mathematician

Richard Bruce Paris was a British mathematician and reader at the Abertay University in Dundee, who specialized in calculus. He also had a honorary readership of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. The research activity of Paris particularly concerned the asymptotics of integrals and properties of special functions. He is the author of Hadamard Expansions and Hyperasymptotic Evaluation: An Extension of the Method of Steepest Descent as well as the co-author of Asymptotics and Mellin-Barnes Integrals and of Asymptotics of High Order Differential Equations. In addition, he contributed to the NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions and also released numerous papers for Proceedings of the Royal Society A, Methods and Applications of Analysis and the Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics.