Ivo Babuška

Ivo M. Babuška (born March 22, 1926 in Prague ) is a Czech mathematician , best known for his contributions to the finite element method and the proof of the Babuška-Lax-Milgram theorem , a generalization of the Lax-Milgram lemma .

Life

Babuška obtained his degree in engineering. in civil engineering in 1949 at the Czech Technical University in Prague . Two years later, in 1951, he received the title of Dr. Tech. as a student of Eduard Čech and Vladimir Knichal (1908–1974) at the Mathematical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic . He later headed the department for partial differential equations there , where he received his doctorate in mathematics in 1955.

In 1968 Babuška was appointed professor at the University of Maryland, College Park , where he taught and researched until his retirement in 1996. He then took a position at the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin , where he is still active today.

In 1994 he received the Birkhoff Prize of the American Mathematical Society and the SIAM for (according to the laudation) his development of a general theory of the error estimation of finite element methods and the and finite element methods. ${\displaystyle p}$ ${\displaystyle hp}$

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An important result of Babuška is the so-called Ladyschenskaja -Babuška- Brezzi condition ( LBB ), often also called the inf-sup condition , which he formulated and proved independently of Ladyschenskaja and Brezzi in 1970/71. The LBB condition is a sufficient condition for the stability of a mixed finite element problem with a saddle point structure . This condition plays a fundamental role in the formulation of stable numerical discretizations from the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations to the stationary Stokes equation to Darcy's law for currents in sedimentary rocks .

Babuška is also known for his work on adaptive finite element algorithms by means of refinement of the element size and the order of the elements as well as the combined methods. ${\displaystyle h}$ ${\displaystyle p}$ ${\displaystyle hp}$

In mathematics, among other things, he made contributions to the decomposition of the one , which are fundamental for smoothness statements and proofs of existence of partial differential equations in the formulation of variations.

Babuška has published more than 300 articles in scientific journals, contributed over 70 contributions to conferences and wrote several books. In addition, his work has received several awards.

Web links

• Literature and other media by and about Ivo Babuška in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Ivo M. Babuska on the part of The University of Texas at Austin