Ensuring well-posedness by analogy; Stokes problem and boundary control for the wave equation (Q1206559)

We give a comparative discussion of the finite element approximation of two partial differential equation problems. These two problems which are apparantly quite unrelated are the Stokes problem for incompressible viscous flow and an exact boundary controllability problem for the wave equation. We show that straightforward discrete approximations to these problems yield approximate problems which are ill-posed. Numerical examples concerning the control problem testify about the soundness of the new approach. To conclude this paper one takes advantage of the previous analysis to give a brief discussion of the wavelet approximation of the Stokes problem, for Dirichlet boundary conditions.