This textbook presents a first introduction to PDEs on an elementary level, enabling the reader to understand what partial differential equations are, where they come from and how they can be solved. The intention is that the reader understands the basic principles which are valid for particular types of PDEs, and to acquire some classical methods to solve them, thus the authors restrict their considerations to fundamental types of equations and basic methods. Only basic facts from calculus and linear ordinary differential equations of first and second order are needed as a...

The series is devoted to the publication of high-level monographs which cover the whole spectrum of current nonlinear analysis and applications in various fields, such as optimization, control theory, systems theory, mechanics, engineering, and other sciences. One of its main objectives is to make available to the professional community expositions of results and foundations of methods that play an important role in both the theory and applications of nonlinear analysis. Contributions which are on the borderline of nonlinear analysis and related fields and which stimulate further research...