This book is a rigorous introduction to the abstract theory of partial differential equations. The main prerequisite is familiarity with basic functional analysis: more advanced topics such as Fredholm operators, the Schauder fixed point theorem and Bochner integrals are introduced when needed, and the book begins by introducing the necessary material from the theory of distributions and Sobolev spaces. Using such techniques, the author presents different methods available for solving elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic equations. He also considers the difference process for the practical...

These volumes are based on lecture courses and seminars given at the LMS Durham Symposium on the geometry of low-dimensional manifolds. This area has been one of intense research recently, with major breakthroughs that have illuminated the way a number of different subjects (topology, differential and algebraic geometry and mathematical physics) interact.

This book appeared about ten years ago in Gennan. It started as notes for a course which I gave intermittently at the ETH over a number of years. Following repeated suggestions, this English translation was commissioned by Springer; they were most fortunate in finding translators whose mathemati cal stature, grasp of the language and unselfish dedication to the essentially thankless task of rendering the text comprehensible in a second language, both impresses and shames me. Therefore, my thanks go to Dr. Roberto Minio, now Darmstadt and Professor Charles Thomas, Cambridge. The task of...