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Per Enflo
Per H. Enflo (Swedish: [ˈpæːr ˈěːnfluː]; born 20 May 1944) is a Swedish mathematician working primarily in functional analysis, a field in which he solved problems that had been considered fundamental. Three of these problems had been open for more than forty years:
In solving these problems, Enflo developed new techniques which were then used by other researchers in functional analysis and operator theory for years. Some of Enflo's research has been important also in other mathematical fields, such as number theory, and in computer science, especially computer algebra and approximation algorithms.
Enflo works at Kent State University, where he holds the title of University Professor. Enflo has earlier held positions at the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, École Polytechnique, (Paris) and The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.
Enflo is also a concert pianist.
In mathematics, functional analysis is concerned with the study of vector spaces and operators acting upon them. It has its historical roots in the study of functional spaces, in particular transformations of functions, such as the Fourier transform, as well as in the study of differential and integral equations. In functional analysis, an important class of vector spaces consists of the complete normed vector spaces over the real or complex numbers, which are called Banach spaces. An important example of a Banach space is a Hilbert space, where the norm arises from an inner product. Hilbert spaces are of fundamental importance in many areas, including the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, stochastic processes, and time-series analysis. Besides studying spaces of functions, functional analysis also studies the continuous linear operators on spaces of functions.
At Stockholm University, Hans Rådström suggested that Enflo consider Hilbert's fifth problem in the spirit of functional analysis. In two years, 1969–1970, Enflo published five papers on Hilbert's fifth problem; these papers are collected in Enflo (1970), along with a short summary. Some of the results of these papers are described in Enflo (1976) and in the last chapter of Benyamini and Lindenstrauss.
Enflo's techniques have found application in computer science. Algorithm theorists derive approximation algorithms that embed finite metric spaces into low-dimensional Euclidean spaces with low "distortion" (in Gromov's terminology for the Lipschitz category; cf. Banach–Mazur distance). Low-dimensional problems have lower computational complexity, of course. More importantly, if the problems embed well in either the Euclidean plane or the three-dimensional Euclidean space, then geometric algorithms become exceptionally fast.
However, such embedding techniques have limitations, as shown by Enflo's (1969) theorem:
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Per Enflo
Per H. Enflo (Swedish: [ˈpæːr ˈěːnfluː]; born 20 May 1944) is a Swedish mathematician working primarily in functional analysis, a field in which he solved problems that had been considered fundamental. Three of these problems had been open for more than forty years:
In solving these problems, Enflo developed new techniques which were then used by other researchers in functional analysis and operator theory for years. Some of Enflo's research has been important also in other mathematical fields, such as number theory, and in computer science, especially computer algebra and approximation algorithms.
Enflo works at Kent State University, where he holds the title of University Professor. Enflo has earlier held positions at the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, École Polytechnique, (Paris) and The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.
Enflo is also a concert pianist.
In mathematics, functional analysis is concerned with the study of vector spaces and operators acting upon them. It has its historical roots in the study of functional spaces, in particular transformations of functions, such as the Fourier transform, as well as in the study of differential and integral equations. In functional analysis, an important class of vector spaces consists of the complete normed vector spaces over the real or complex numbers, which are called Banach spaces. An important example of a Banach space is a Hilbert space, where the norm arises from an inner product. Hilbert spaces are of fundamental importance in many areas, including the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, stochastic processes, and time-series analysis. Besides studying spaces of functions, functional analysis also studies the continuous linear operators on spaces of functions.
At Stockholm University, Hans Rådström suggested that Enflo consider Hilbert's fifth problem in the spirit of functional analysis. In two years, 1969–1970, Enflo published five papers on Hilbert's fifth problem; these papers are collected in Enflo (1970), along with a short summary. Some of the results of these papers are described in Enflo (1976) and in the last chapter of Benyamini and Lindenstrauss.
Enflo's techniques have found application in computer science. Algorithm theorists derive approximation algorithms that embed finite metric spaces into low-dimensional Euclidean spaces with low "distortion" (in Gromov's terminology for the Lipschitz category; cf. Banach–Mazur distance). Low-dimensional problems have lower computational complexity, of course. More importantly, if the problems embed well in either the Euclidean plane or the three-dimensional Euclidean space, then geometric algorithms become exceptionally fast.
However, such embedding techniques have limitations, as shown by Enflo's (1969) theorem: