Stefan Hildebrandt

Anthony Tromba

Why does nature prefer some shapes and not others? The variety of sizes, shapes, and irregularities in nature is endless. Skillfully integrating striking full-color illustrations, the authors describe the efforts by scientists and mathematicians since the Renaissance to identify and describe the principles underlying the shape of natural forms. But can one set of laws account for both the symmetry and irregularity as well as the infinite variety of nature's designs? A complete answer to this question is likely never to be discovered. Yet, it is fascinating to see how the search for some simple universal laws down through the ages has increased our understanding of nature. The Parsimonious Universe looks at examples from the world around us at a non-mathematical, non-technical level to show that nature achieves efficiency by being stingy with the energy it expends.

Shape and Form in the Natural World

The Parsimonious Universe

Ulrich Dierkes

Albrecht Küster

Ortwin Wohlrab

Minimal surfaces I is an introduction to the field of minimal surfaces and apresentation of the classical theory as well as of parts of the modern development centered around boundary value problems. Part II deals with the boundary behaviour of minimal surfaces. Part I is particularly apt for students who want to enter this interesting area of analysis and differential geometry which during the last 25 years of mathematical research has been very active and productive. Surveys of various subareas will lead the student to the current frontiers of knowledge and can alsobe useful to the researcher. The lecturer can easily base courses of one or two semesters on differential geometry on Vol. 1, as many topics are worked out in great detail. Numerous computer-generated illustrations of old and new minimal surfaces are included to support intuition and imagination. Part 2 leads the reader up to the regularity theory fornonlinear elliptic boundary value problems illustrated by a particular and fascinating topic. There is no comparably comprehensive treatment of the problem of boundary regularity of minimal surfaces available in book form. This long-awaited book is a timely and welcome addition to the mathematical literature.

Boundary Value Problems

Minimal Surfaces I

Many properties of minimal surfaces are of a global nature, and this is already true for the results treated in the first two volumes of the treatise. Part I of the present book can be viewed as an extension of these results. For instance, the first two chapters deal with existence, regularity and uniqueness theorems for minimal surfaces with partially free boundaries. Here one of the main features is the possibility of "edge-crawling" along free parts of the boundary. The third chapter deals with a priori estimates for minimal surfaces in higher dimensions and for minimizers of singular integrals related to the area functional. In particular, far reaching Bernstein theorems are derived. The second part of the book contains what one might justly call a "global theory of minimal surfaces" as envisioned by Smale. First, the Douglas problem is treated anew by using Teichmüller theory. Secondly, various index theorems for minimal theorems are derived, and their consequences for the space of solutions to Plateau ́s problem are discussed. Finally, a topological approach to minimal surfaces via Fredholm vector fields in the spirit of Smale is presented.

Global Analysis of Minimal Surfaces

Friedrich Sauvigny

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.

Minimal Surfaces

Regularity of Minimal Surfaces begins with a survey of minimal surfaces with free boundaries. Following this, the basic results concerning the boundary behaviour of minimal surfaces and H-surfaces with fixed or free boundaries are studied. In particular, the asymptotic expansions at interior and boundary branch points are derived, leading to general Gauss-Bonnet formulas. Furthermore, gradient estimates and asymptotic expansions for minimal surfaces with only piecewise smooth boundaries are obtained. One of the main features of free boundary value problems for minimal surfaces is that, for principal reasons, it is impossible to derive a priori estimates. Therefore regularity proofs for non-minimizers have to be based on indirect reasoning using monotonicity formulas. This is followed by a long chapter discussing geometric properties of minimal and H-surfaces such as enclosure theorems and isoperimetric inequalities, leading to the discussion of obstacle problems and of Plateau ́s problem for H-surfaces in a Riemannian manifold. A natural generalization of the isoperimetric problem is the so-called thread problem, dealing with minimal surfaces whose boundary consists of a fixed arc of given length. Existence and regularity of solutions are discussed. The final chapter on branch points presents a new approach to the theorem that area minimizing solutions of Plateau ́s problem have no interior branch points.

Regularity of Minimal Surfaces

Vsevolod A. Solonnikov

Michael Sh. Birman

Nina N. Uraltseva

The new series, International Mathematical Series founded by Kluwer / Plenum Publishers and the Russian publisher, Tamara Rozhkovskaya is published simultaneously in English and in Russian and starts with two volumes dedicated to the famous Russian mathematician Professor Olga Aleksandrovna Ladyzhenskaya, on the occasion of her 80th birthday. O.A. Ladyzhenskaya graduated from the Moscow State University. But throughout her career she has been closely connected with St. Petersburg where she works at the V.A. Steklov Mathematical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Many generations of mathematicians have become familiar with the nonlinear theory of partial differential equations reading the books on quasilinear elliptic and parabolic equations written by O.A. Ladyzhenskaya with V.A. Solonnikov and N.N. Uraltseva. Her results and methods on the Navier-Stokes equations, and other mathematical problems in the theory of viscous fluids, nonlinear partial differential equations and systems, the regularity theory, some directions of computational analysis are well known. So it is no surprise that these two volumes attracted leading specialists in partial differential equations and mathematical physics from more than 15 countries, who present their new results in the various fields of mathematics in which the results, methods, and ideas of O.A. Ladyzhenskaya played a fundamental role. Nonlinear Problems in Mathematical Physics and Related Topics I presents new results from distinguished specialists in the theory of partial differential equations and analysis. A large part of the material is devoted to the Navier-Stokes equations, which play an important role in the theory of viscous fluids. In particular, the existence of a local strong solution (in the sense of Ladyzhenskaya) to the problem describing some special motion in a Navier-Stokes fluid is established. Ladyzhenskaya's results on axially symmetric solutions to the Navier-Stokes fluid are generalized and solutions with fast decay of nonstationary Navier-Stokes equations in the half-space are stated. Application of the Fourier-analysis to the study of the Stokes wave problem and some interesting properties of the Stokes problem are presented. The nonstationary Stokes problem is also investigated in nonconvex domains and some Lp-estimates for the first-order derivatives of solutions are obtained. New results in the theory of fully nonlinear equations are presented. Some asymptotics are derived for elliptic operators with strongly degenerated symbols. New results are also presented for variational problems connected with phase transitions of means in controllable dynamical systems, nonlocal problems for quasilinear parabolic equations, elliptic variational problems with nonstandard growth, and some sufficient conditions for the regularity of lateral boundary. Additionally, new results are presented on area formulas, estimates for eigenvalues in the case of the weighted Laplacian on Metric graph, application of the direct Lyapunov method in continuum mechanics, singular perturbation property of capillary surfaces, partially free boundary problem for parametric double integrals.

In Honor of Professor O. A. Ladyzhenskaya

Nonlinear Problems in Mathematical Physics and Related Topics I

Max Landsberg

Tosio Kato

Victor Klee

Felix E. Browder

Günter Ewald

Harro Heuser

Anastasios Mallios

W. A. J. Luxemburg

Heinz König

R. E. Fullerton

C. C. Braunschweiger

Ebbe Thue Poulsen

Jean Leray

Gregers Krabbe

Takako Kōmura

Yukio Kōmura

Helmut H. Schaefer

Kosaku Yosida

Nelson Dunford

Joseph Nieto

A. C. Zaanen

J. L. B. Cooper

R. S. Bucy

G. Maltese

Jean Dieudonné

H. G. Garnir

Angus E. Taylor

Thomas Riedrich

E. Michael

A. Martineau

J. L. Kelley

Vlastimil Pták

Shozo Koshi

Horst Leptin

H. Reiter

L. Waelbroeck

N. Aronszajn

P. Szeptycki

Richard Arens

Czeslaw Bessaga

Hidegoro Nakano

Joseph Wloka

Ky Fan

Hubert Berens

P. L. Butzer

H. O. Cordes

Gerhard Neubauer

J. B. Diaz

F. T. Metcalf

M. A. Naǐmark

Elmar Thoma

Bernhard Gramsch

Contributions to Functional Analysis

Minimal Surfaces I is an introduction to the field of minimal surfaces and a presentation of the classical theory as well as of parts of the modern development centered around boundary value problems. Part II deals with the boundary behaviour of minimal surfaces. Part I is particularly apt for students who want to enter this interesting area of analysis and differential geometry which during the last 25 years of mathematical research has been very active and productive. Surveys of various subareas will lead the student to the current frontiers of knowledge and can also be useful to the researcher. The lecturer can easily base courses of one or two semesters on differential geometry on Vol. 1, as many topics are worked out in great detail. Numerous computer-generated illustrations of old and new minimal surfaces are included to support intuition and imagination. Part 2 leads the reader up to the regularity theory for nonlinear elliptic boundary value problems illustrated by a particular and fascinating topic. There is no comparably comprehensive treatment of the problem of boundary regularity of minimal surfaces available in book form. This long-awaited book is a timely and welcome addition to the mathematical literature.

Boundary Regularity

Minimal Surfaces II

Stefan Hildebrandt

Books

Your next favorite book is out there