Analysis and Numerics of Partial Differential Equations

On November 2nd 2010 Enrico Magenes passed away. One year later, some of his friends, collaborators and former students organized a three-day conference, in order to celebrate his memory and give a first assessment of his deep influence on contemporary Mathematics. All the speakers were experts in the analysis and numerics of partial differential equations, who had directly interacted with Magenes, during his long career. The present volume is a direct offshoot of that meeting, and it collects the main contributions offered in that occasion, properly revised and expanded. It consists of two parts: the first one gives a wide historical perspective of Magenes' work; the second one contains original research or survey papers, and shows how ideas, methods, and techniques introduced by Magenes and his collaborators still have an impact on the current research in Mathematics. As agreed between Springer and UMI (Unione Matematica Italiana), some of the papers appearing in the second part will be fully published on Bollettino UMI as well. Although it is still too early to fully appreciate Magenes' legacy, nonetheless the volume is a first attempt to present a comprehensive survey of his activity in Mathematics. At the same time, from Magenes' peculiar point of view, it is a broad perspective of the research in partial differential equations and their applications developed in Italy in the period 1950-2000.