Moments, positive polynomials and their applications

Lasserre (National Center of Scientific Research, Paris and mathematics, U. of Toulouse) demonstrates that the generalized moment problem, which most mathematicians agree cannot be solved numerically, becomes much more forgiving with polynomial data. He argues that people may now consider solving--or at least approximating as closely as desired--some difficult problems that were thought to be out of reach a few years ago, or for which only heuristics were available. Among the applications he describes are systems of polynomial equations, Markov chains, multivariate integration, and bounds on linear partial differential equations. Distributed in the US by World Scientific. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)