Functional Analysis (in English)

Home page for the course (WS2004)

(Prof. Laszlo Erdos and Dr. Thomas Sorensen)

Brief contents of the lectures

Exercise Sheets

FINAL EXAM

CUMULATIVE RESULTS OF THE FINAL EXAM

Out of 40 points, the following results were obtained in decreasing order:

40, 33, 29, 29, 29, 26, 24, 24, 21, 18, 17, 17, 16, 13, 8, 2

Exams are available at Frau Winter's office (Room 117) between 9:00-12:00. You can have a look at the exams in Frau Hoechst office (Room 330 between 8:30-12:30), but we keep the originals.

The Scheins will be available (Frau Hoechst office) approximately around Feb 16, after the last homework set is graded.

SOLUTIONS

Solutions

RULES

Time, place: February 5, Saturday, 15:30-17:30. Room E06.

The final is obligatory for the Schein (see rules below). If you have an absolute unaviodable conflict, let me know as soon as possible.

Material: Complete material of all lectures up to the lecture on Jan 28 (inclusive). Correspondingly, every Exercise sheet up to Sheet no. 12 (inclusive). The solutions of Sheet 12 will be published on Feb 4. at 2:00 PM (after the return deadline).

You are allowed to bring 1 (one) two-sided cheat sheet: a piece of A4-paper on which you have written (on both sides) whatever you think might be useful for the Klausur/exam. You may not bring anything else (apart from pens/pencils), i.e., no books, notes from class, homework, solutions to homework etc. Put your name on every sheet you wish to hand in, and write readable.

There will be extra office hours:

Friday, Feb 4. 15:00-16:00, Thomas Sorensen (office 335)

Saturday, Feb 5, 13:00-15:00, Laszlo Erdos (office 329)

General Information for the course

For:

Students in the International Master Program, Students of mathematics and physics.

Prerequisites:

Introductory courses in analysis and linear algebra (Analysis I-III, Lineare Algebra I-II)

Certificate (Schein):

Gilt für Diplomhauptprüfung (AM); Hauptprüfung für das Lehramt an Gymnasien.
Requirement for the Schein: Due the recent budget cuts, we do not know yet how many homework problems we can afford to grade, so the following rule might change until the end of the first week. There will be weekly exercise sheets, but we probably will not be able to grade all of them. Most likely we can grade only half of the problems from each sheet. In this case, the problems to be graded will be determined randomly.
Exercise sheets and the Final exam both count with equal weight (50%-50%) towards the total performance. To obtain the Schein, 50% total performance and at least 40% performance in the Exercise Sheets and at least 40% performance in the Klausur are required.

Time and place:

Lectures (Prof. Erdos):

Tuesdays and Fridays, 9:15-11:00, Room E5 Starts: October 19.

Exercise sessions (Dr. Sorensen):

Tuesday 14:15-16:00, Room E47,
Wednesday 16:15-18:00, Room E47.

Office hours:

Prof. Erdos: Thursdays 2-4. Room 329 (block B).
Dr. Sorensen: Thursdays 1-3. Room 335 (block B).

Klausur (Final Exam):

Feb 5 (Saturday) at 15:30. Room and more details will follow.

Exercise Sheets:

Posted on the web every Friday. Solutions are due the following Friday at 2pm in the designated box.

What is functional analysis?

It is a deep fact of the physical world around us that most of its behavior can be formulated in terms of differential and integral calculus. Wave and heat propagation, elasticity, motion of galaxies and electrons etc. are all described by (partial) differential equations (PDE). Functional analysis is the starting point for mathematical analysis in real-life physical systems, in particular it is the first step towards PDE's and numerical methods. It is the child of two fundamental branches of mathematics: analysis and linear algebra. In analysis we have learned how to grasp infinite procedures (e.g. limits) rigorously, while linear algebra has taught us how to deal with finitely many (linearly) interrelated scalar quantities in a computationally effective way. A water wave or an elastic sheet, however, is described by a continuum of interrelated scalars (think of the displacement of each point in the wave), so one must understand how to do linear algebra in infinite dimensions. Therefore the powerful concept of the limit from analysis became indispensable and functional analysis was born. As a prodigy child, very quickly after its birth, it has proved to be much more far-reaching than a refined synthesis of known mathematical ideas. In the late 20's it turned out that the foundations of quantum physics rely entirely on functional analysis. It has also revolutionized the theory of PDE's by providing solid ground for the theory of distributions, which made it possible to solve a much wider class of PDE's. This course will present the standard introductory material to functional analysis with more focus on applications. The two fundamental results are the Fredholm theory of compact operators that enables us to solve simple PDE's and the spectral theorem which is the cornerstone of the mathematical model of quantum mechanics.

Language

The lectures, the webpage and our main literature are in English. The purpose is double: to strengthen the English knowledge of the German students and to make the lectures accessible to non-German Master students. The exercise sessions are also held in English, by default. However, Dr. Sorensen is ready to switch to German in private discussions. If you feel that your English is not strong enough to ask questions, please do it in German. The questions on the Exercise sheets and on the Klausur will be in English, but the solutions can be turned in either in German or in English.

Literature:

There will be no comprehensive Skript (Lecture Notes), since we mainly follow excellent textbooks. Some additional web-notes will be published on particular topics. The brief contents of the lectures will keep you updated, here you will find the precise references.

Our main text

Reed-Simon: Functional Analysis (Methods of Modern Mathematical Physics Vol. I), Academic Press, 1980. 1 copy of this book is kept on reserve in the library. The book is also available for purchase (see, e.g., www.amazon.de), but it is quite pricey (although it's worth its price). Buying the book is not required.

Additional texts:

Contents: (preliminary)