History
Lyapunov stability is named after Aleksandr Lyapunov, a Russian mathematician who published his book "The General Problem of Stability of Motion" in 1892. Lyapunov was the first to consider the modifications necessary in nonlinear systems to the linear theory of stability based on linearizing near a point of equilibrium. His work, initially published in Russian and then translated to French, received little attention for many years. Interest in it started suddenly during the Cold War (1953-1962) period when the so-called "Second Method of Lyapunov" was found to be applicable to the stability of aerospace guidance systems which typically contain strong nonlinearities not treatable by other methods. A large number of publications appeared then and since in the control and systems literature. More recently the concept of the Lyapunov exponent (related to Lyapunov's First Method of discussing stability) has received wide interest in connection with chaos theory. Lyapunov stability methods have also been applied to finding equilibrium solutions in traffic assignment problems.
Read more about this topic: Lyapunov Stability
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)