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Ivar I. Ekeland (born 2 July 1944, Paris) is a French mathematician of Norwegian descent. Ekeland has written influential monographs and textbooks on nonlinear functional analysis, the calculus of variations, and mathematical economics, as well as popular books on mathematics, which have been published in French, English, and other languages. Ekeland is known as the author of Ekeland's variational principle and for his use of the Shapley–Folkman lemma in optimization theory. He has contributed to the periodic solutions of Hamiltonian systems and particularly to the theory of Kreĭn indices for linear systems (Floquet theory). Ekeland helped to inspire the discussion of chaos theory in Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park.
“The optimist believes that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears that this might be the case.”
“So every possible reality, once God gives it existence, will reveal its own identity. Its life will unfold slowly, whereas God encompasses it at a single glance.”
“The transition from integrable to non integrable systems is quiet interesting to observe.”
“An equilibrium is not always an optimum; it might not even be good. This may be the most important discovery of game theory.”
“The social world is not driven by natural laws and randomness alone, as the physical world is, but also by human wills.”
“What is needed is courage: it is always so much easier to accept what you are being told than to think for yourself.”
Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.
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