Martin Bohner

This book offers the reader an overview of recent developments of multivariable dynamic calculus on time scales, taking readers beyond the traditional calculus texts. Covering topics from parameter-dependent integrals to partial differentiation on time scales, the book’s nine pedagogically oriented chapters provide a pathway to this active area of research that will appeal to students and researchers in mathematics and the physical sciences. The authors present a clear and well-organized treatment of the concept behind the mathematics and solution techniques, including many practical examples and exercises.

This book offers the reader an overview of recent developments of multivariable dynamic calculus on time scales, taking readers beyond the traditional calculus texts. Covering topics from parameter-dependent integrals to partial differentiation on time scales, the book’s nine pedagogically oriented chapters provide a pathway to this active area of research that will appeal to students and researchers in mathematics and the physical sciences. The authors present a clear and well-organized treatment of the concept behind the mathematics and solution techniques, including many practical examples and exercises.

On becoming familiar with difference equations and their close re­ lation to differential equations, I was in hopes that the theory of difference equations could be brought completely abreast with that for ordinary differential equations. [HUGH L. TURRITTIN, My Mathematical Expectations, Springer Lecture Notes 312 (page 10), 1973] A major task of mathematics today is to harmonize the continuous and the discrete, to include them in one comprehensive mathematics, and to eliminate obscurity from both. [E. T. BELL, Men of Mathematics, Simon and Schuster, New York (page 13/14), 1937] The theory of time scales, which has recently received a lot of attention, was introduced by Stefan Hilger in his PhD thesis [159] in 1988 (supervised by Bernd Aulbach) in order to unify continuous and discrete analysis. This book is an intro­ duction to the study of dynamic equations on time scales. Many results concerning differential equations carryover quite easily to corresponding results for difference equations, while other results seem to be completely different in nature from their continuous counterparts. The study of dynamic equations on time scales reveals such discrepancies, and helps avoid proving results twice, once for differential equa­ tions and once for difference equations. The general idea is to prove a result for a dynamic equation where the domain of the unknown function is a so-called time scale, which is an arbitrary nonempty closed subset of the reals.

This book provides an extensive survey on Lyapunov-type inequalities. It summarizes and puts order into a vast literature available on the subject, and sketches recent developments in this topic. In an elegant and didactic way, this work presents the concepts underlying Lyapunov-type inequalities, covering how they developed and what kind of problems they address. This survey starts by introducing basic applications of Lyapunov’s inequalities. It then advances towards even-order, odd-order, and higher-order boundary value problems; Lyapunov and Hartman-type inequalities; systems of linear, nonlinear, and quasi-linear differential equations; recent developments in Lyapunov-type inequalities; partial differential equations; linear difference equations; and Lyapunov-type inequalities for linear, half-linear, and nonlinear dynamic equations on time scales, as well as linear Hamiltonian dynamic systems. Senior undergraduate students and graduate students of mathematics, engineering, and science will benefit most from this book, as well as researchers in the areas of ordinary differential equations, partial differential equations, difference equations, and dynamic equations. Some background in calculus, ordinary and partial differential equations, and difference equations is recommended for full enjoyment of the content.

This book summarizes the qualitative theory of differential equations with or without delays, collecting recent oscillation studies important to applications and further developments in mathematics, physics, engineering, and biology. The authors address oscillatory and nonoscillatory properties of first-order delay and neutral delay differential equations, second-order delay and ordinary differential equations, higher-order delay differential equations, and systems of nonlinear differential equations. The final chapter explores key aspects of the oscillation of dynamic equations on time scales-a new and innovative theory that accomodates differential and difference equations simultaneously.

On becoming familiar with difference equations and their close re­ lation to differential equations, I was in hopes that the theory of difference equations could be brought completely abreast with that for ordinary differential equations. [HUGH L. TURRITTIN, My Mathematical Expectations, Springer Lecture Notes 312 (page 10), 1973] A major task of mathematics today is to harmonize the continuous and the discrete, to include them in one comprehensive mathematics, and to eliminate obscurity from both. [E. T. BELL, Men of Mathematics, Simon and Schuster, New York (page 13/14), 1937] The theory of time scales, which has recently received a lot of attention, was introduced by Stefan Hilger in his PhD thesis [159] in 1988 (supervised by Bernd Aulbach) in order to unify continuous and discrete analysis. This book is an intro­ duction to the study of dynamic equations on time scales. Many results concerning differential equations carryover quite easily to corresponding results for difference equations, while other results seem to be completely different in nature from their continuous counterparts. The study of dynamic equations on time scales reveals such discrepancies, and helps avoid proving results twice, once for differential equa­ tions and once for difference equations. The general idea is to prove a result for a dynamic equation where the domain of the unknown function is a so-called time scale, which is an arbitrary nonempty closed subset of the reals.