This book provides an introduction to the ideas and methods of linear func tional analysis at a level appropriate to the final year of an undergraduate course at a British university. The prerequisites for reading it are a standard undergraduate knowledge of linear algebra and real analysis (including the the ory of metric spaces). Part of the development of functional analysis can be traced to attempts to find a suitable framework in which to discuss differential and integral equa tions. Often, the appropriate setting turned out to be a vector space of real or complex-valued functions defined on some set. In general, such a vector space is infinite-dimensional. This leads to difficulties in that, although many of the elementary properties of finite-dimensional vector spaces hold in infinite dimensional vector spaces, many others do not. For example, in general infinite dimensional vector spaces there is no framework in which to make sense of an alytic concepts such as convergence and continuity. Nevertheless, on the spaces of most interest to us there is often a norm (which extends the idea of the length of a vector to a somewhat more abstract setting). Since a norm on a vector space gives rise to a metric on the space, it is now possible to do analysis in the space. As real or complex-valued functions are often called functionals, the term functional analysis came to be used for this topic. We now briefly outline the contents of the book.

This book gives an introduction to Linear Functional Analysis, which is a synthesis of algebra, topology, and analysis. In addition to the basic theory it explains operator theory, distributions, Sobolev spaces, and many other things. The text is self-contained and includes all proofs, as well as many exercises, most of them with solutions. Moreover, there are a number of appendices, for example on Lebesgue integration theory. A complete introduction to the subject, Linear Functional Analysis will be particularly useful to readers who want to quickly get to the key statements and who are interested in applications to differential equations.

Introduction to the themes of mathematical analysis, geared toward advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Topics include operators, function spaces, Hilbert spaces, and elementary Fourier analysis. Numerous exercises and worked examples.1973 edition.

Presents the basic facts of linear functional analysis as related to fundamental aspects of mathematical analysis and their applications. It avoids unnecessary terminology and generality and focuses on showing how the knowledge of these structures clarifies what is essential in analytic problems. The presentation is intended to be accessible to readers whose backgrounds include basic linear algebra, integration theory, and general topology.

This single-volume textbook covers the fundamentals of linear and nonlinear functional analysis, illustrating most of the basic theorems with numerous applications to linear and nonlinear partial differential equations and to selected topics from numerical analysis and optimization theory. This book has pedagogical appeal because it features self-contained and complete proofs of most of the theorems, some of which are not always easy to locate in the literature or are difficult to reconstitute. It also offers 401 problems and 52 figures, plus historical notes and many original references that provide an idea of the genesis of the important results, and it covers most of the core topics from functional analysis.

This textbook is addressed to graduate students in mathematics or other disciplines who wish to understand the essential concepts of functional analysis and their applications to partial differential equations. The book is intentionally concise, presenting all the fundamental concepts and results but omitting the more specialized topics. Enough of the theory of Sobolev spaces and semigroups of linear operators is included as needed to develop significant applications to elliptic, parabolic, and hyperbolic PDEs. Throughout the book, care has been taken to explain the connections between theorems in functional analysis and familiar results of finite-dimensional linear algebra. The main concepts and ideas used in the proofs are illustrated with a large number of figures. A rich collection of homework problems is included at the end of most chapters. The book is suitable as a text for a one-semester graduate course.

"The book contains an enormous amount of information — mathematical, bibliographical and historical — interwoven with some outstanding heuristic discussions." — Mathematical Reviews. In this massive graduate-level study, Emeritus Professor Edwards (Australian National University, Canberra) presents a balanced account of both the abstract theory and the applications of linear functional analysis. Written for readers with a basic knowledge of set theory, general topology, and vector spaces, the book includes an abundance of carefully chosen illustrative examples and excellent exercises at the end of each chapter. Beginning with a chapter of preliminaries on set theory and topology, Dr. Edwards then presents detailed, in-depth discussions of vector spaces and topological vector spaces, the Hahn-Banach theorem (including applications to potential theory, approximation theory, game theory, and other fields) and fixed-point theorems. Subsequent chapters focus on topological duals of certain spaces: radon measures, distribution and linear partial differential equations, open mapping and closed graph theorems, boundedness principles, duality theory, the theory of compact operators and the Krein-Milman theorem and its applications to commutative harmonic analysis. Clearly and concisely written, Dr. Edwards's book offers rewarding reading to mathematicians and physicists with an interest in the important field of functional analysis. Because of the broad scope of its coverage, this volume will be especially valuable to the reader with a basic knowledge of functional analysis who wishes to learn about parts of the subject other than his own specialties. A comprehensive 32-page bibliography supplies a rich source of references to the basic literature.