History of mathematicians

In this document we give some information of mathematicians which work or names are used in the course wi4010 Numerical methods for large algebraic systems.

1. Direct solution methods for linear systems

In order to be able to measure distances with respect to vectors and matrices we have defined normed spaces. Most of the spaces used in this course are Banach spaces Stefan Banach (1892-1945) . For the vector norms different choices are made. An important class of norms are the so-called Hölder norms Otto Ludwig Hölder (1859-1937). For the special choice p=2 we get the Euclid norm Euclid ( 295 b.c.e.- ). With respect to matrix norms we consider norms derived from vector norms. Furthermore we mention the Frobenius norm George Ferdinand Frobenius (1849-1917).

Furthemore we use spaces where an inner product is defined. Most of these spaces are Hilbert spaces David Hilbert (1862-1943). Using the Hölder inequality we show that the Euclid norm satisfies the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789-1857) and Karl Hermann Amandus Schwarz (1843-1921).

We start our description of direct methods for solving linear systems with the Gauss elimination method ( Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855)). Thereafter we discuss the Cholesky ( André Louis Cholesky (1875-1918)) method for symmetric positive definite matrices. Furthermore we show that much work and memory can be saved in the case of band matrices.

2. Basic iterative solution methods for linear systems

An important example of a banded system is the discretization of the Poisson equation Simeon Denis Poisson (1781-1840). The standard iterative methods, which are used are the Gauss-Jacobi and the Gauss-Seidel method. Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) is a very famous mathematician working on abstract and applied mathematics. ( Carl Gustav Jacobi (1804-1851)) is well known for instance for the Jacobian the determinant of the matrix of partial derivatives. He has also done work on iterative methods leading to the Gauss-Jacobi method. ( Philipp Ludwig von Seidel (1821-1896) )

Another iterative method is the Chebyshev method. This method is based on orthogonal polynomials bearing the name of Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev (1821-1894). The Gauss-Jacobi and Gauss-Seidel method use a very simple polynomial to approximate the solution. In the Chebyshev method an optimal polynomial is used.

3. A Krylov subspace method for systems with a symmetric positive definite matrix

Nowadays the most popular iterative methods are Krylov subspace methods ( Aleksei Nikolaevich Krylov ( 1863- 1945) and a second link). For symmetric matrices the resulting method is known as the Conjugate Gradient method proposed by Hestenes and Stiefel.

4. Preconditioning of Krylov subspace methods

A Krylov method is in general only usefull if it is combined with a preconditioner. The first method with appears to converge very fast with a preconditioner is the ICCG method proposed by Meijerink and Van der Vorst in 1977.

5. Krylov subspace methods for general matrices

Nowadays the most popular iterative methods are the preconditioned Krylov methods ( Nikolai Mitrofanovich Krylov ( 1879- 1955)). For symmetric matrices the resulting method is known as the conjugate gradient method. For non symmetric matrices different generalizations exists for instance Bi-CG, CGS (Sonneveld), Bi-CGSTAB ( Van der Vorst), GCR (Elman), GMRES (Saad), GMRESR ( Van der Vorst and Vuik) etc. In the GCR, GMRES and GMRESR method a orthogonal basis for the Krylov subspace is used. This basis is constructed from an arbitrary basis using the Gram-Schmidt method ( Jorgen Pedersen Gram (1850-1916) and Erhard Schmidt (1876-1959))

6. Iterative methods for eigenvalue problems

For symmetric matrices, the Lanczos method ( Cornelius Lanczos (1893-1974)) is used to approximate the matrix by a small tridiagonal matrix. The eigenvalues of this matrix are called the Ritz values. For a non-symmetric matrix the Arnoldi method is used to transform the matrix to a small Hessenberg matrix.

8. Parallel computers

Domain decomposition methods are very suitable for parallel computing. The Schwarz method ( Hermann Amandus Schwarz (1843-1921)) is a classical domain decomposition method.

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