Numerical continuation methods: a perspective (Q1593828)

This paper is a contribution to a volume dedicated to giving brief ''state of the art'' summarizations of a number of aspects of the numerical treatment of optimization and systems of nonlinear equations. The author gives a historical perspective of the principal numerical approaches to continuation methods. These are outlined in the framework of the mathematical sources which contributed to their development, notably homotopy and degree theory, simplicial complexes and mappings, submanifolds, and singularity and foldpoint theory. A final section also touches upon a number of additional topics of numerical continuation methods which due to space limitations could not be addressed in detail. References to these items are provided.