This book started its life as a series of lectures given by the second author from the 1970's onwards to students in their third and fourth years in the Department of Mechanics and Mathematics at Rostov State University. For these lectures there was also an audience of engineers and applied mechanicists who wished to understand the functional analysis used in contemporary research in their fields. These people were not so much interested in functional analysis itself as in its applications; they did not want to be told about functional analysis in its most abstract form, but wanted a guided tour through those parts of the analysis needed for their applications. The lecture notes evolved over the years as the first author started to make more formal typewritten versions incorporating new material. About 1990 the first author prepared an English version and submitted it to Kluwer Academic Publishers for inclusion in the series Solid Mechanics and its Applications. At that state the notes were divided into three long chapters covering linear and nonlinear analysis. As Series Editor, the third author started to edit them. The requirements of lecture notes and books are vastly different. A book has to be complete (in some sense), self contained, and able to be read without the help of an instructor.

This book offers a brief, practically complete, and relatively simple introduction to functional analysis. It also illustrates the application of functional analytic methods to the science of continuum mechanics. Abstract but powerful mathematical notions are tightly interwoven with physical ideas in the treatment of nontrivial boundary value problems for mechanical objects.

This second edition includes more extended coverage of the classical andabstract portions of functional analysis. Taken together, the first three chapters now constitute a regular text on applied functional analysis. This potential use of the book is supported by a significantly extended set of exercises with hints and solutions. A new appendix, providing a convenient listing of essential inequalities and imbedding results, has been added.

The book should appeal to graduate students and researchers in physics, engineering, and applied mathematics.

Reviews of first edition:

"This book covers functional analysis and its applications to continuum mechanics. The presentation is concise but complete, and is intended for readers in continuum mechanics who wish to understand the mathematical underpinnings of the discipline. Detailed solutions of the exercises are provided in an appendix." (L Enseignment Mathematique, Vol. 49 (1-2), 2003)

"The reader comes away with a profound appreciation both of the physics and its importance, and of the beauty of the functional analytic method, which, in skillful hands, has the power to dissolve and clarify these difficult problems as peroxide does clotted blood. Numerous exercises test the reader s comprehension at every stage. Summing Up: Recommended." (F. E. J. Linton, Choice, September, 2003)

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This book offers a brief, practically complete, and relatively simple introduction to functional analysis. It also illustrates the application of functional analytic methods to the science of continuum mechanics. Abstract but powerful mathematical notions are tightly interwoven with physical ideas in the treatment of nontrivial boundary value problems for mechanical objects. This second edition includes more extended coverage of the classical and abstract portions of functional analysis. Taken together, the first three chapters now constitute a regular text on applied functional analysis. This potential use of the book is supported by a significantly extended set of exercises with hints and solutions. A new appendix, providing a convenient listing of essential inequalities and imbedding results, has been added. The book should appeal to graduate students and researchers in physics, engineering, and applied mathematics. Reviews of first edition: "This book covers functional analysis and its applications to continuum mechanics. The presentation is concise but complete, and is intended for readers in continuum mechanics who wish to understand the mathematical underpinnings of the discipline. ... Detailed solutions of the exercises are provided in an appendix." (L'Enseignment Mathematique, Vol. 49 (1-2), 2003) "The reader comes away with a profound appreciation both of the physics and its importance, and of the beauty of the functional analytic method, which, in skillful hands, has the power to dissolve and clarify these difficult problems as peroxide does clotted blood. Numerous exercises ... test the reader's comprehension at every stage. Summing Up: Recommended." (F. E. J. Linton, Choice, September, 2003)

This book presents rigorous treatment of boundary value problems in nonlinear theory of shallow shells. The consideration of the problems is carried out using methods of nonlinear functional analysis.

This book started its life as a series of lectures given by the second author from the 1970's onwards to students in their third and fourth years in the Department of Mechanics and Mathematics at Rostov State University. For these lectures there was also an audience of engineers and applied mechanicists who wished to understand the functional analysis used in contemporary research in their fields. These people were not so much interested in functional analysis itself as in its applications; they did not want to be told about functional analysis in its most abstract form, but wanted a guided tour through those parts of the analysis needed for their applications. The lecture notes evolved over the years as the first author started to make more formal typewritten versions incorporating new material. About 1990 the first author prepared an English version and submitted it to Kluwer Academic Publishers for inclusion in the series Solid Mechanics and its Applications. At that state the notes were divided into three long chapters covering linear and nonlinear analysis. As Series Editor, the third author started to edit them. The requirements of lecture notes and books are vastly different. A book has to be complete (in some sense), self contained, and able to be read without the help of an instructor.