Talk:Elliptic boundary value problem

A man, a plan, a canal, panama

Ok, I just finished writing this. I think that stuff like Elliptic operator should just point here. Linkage should probably be added from everything that depends on elliptic operators, like Sturm-Liouville theory, Navier-Stokes equation, etc... Loisel 05:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

critique of introductory paragraphs

This could use improvement on several fronts.

1) The definition provided in the first line refers to another page on "evolution problem", which hasn't yet been created -- rendering the definition pretty unhelpful.

2) The expression "can be thought of" -- who exactly is doing the thinking here? The reader, or someone the reader doesn't even know? How does thinking of it impact what the thing is? This expression shouldn't appear in an introduction.

3) Are you quite sure that all elliptic boundary value problems "can be thought of" as a "stable state of an evolution problem"?

The problem for static temperature in a heated room is mentioned. But the next elliptic boundary value problem that comes to mind is that of electrostatic potential... I guess you *could* construct some evolution problem whose stable state is that potential, but it would not be natural.

Furthermore, are you saying that only elliptic boundary value problems are the stable state of an evolution problem? No, that's incorrect as well: evolution problems exist, whose stable states can be described by quite non-elliptic boundary value problems.

So this business about evolution problems serves neither to indicate what an elliptic boundary problem is, nor what it is not.

That's just the first paragraph.

Stevan WhiteStevan White (talk) 10:10, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]