Approximation in normed linear spaces (Q1587393)

This historical account of numerical methods for minimization of a norm is evenly divided between linear and nonlinear approximation methods. If one allows that a vector in \({\mathbb R}^n\) is a function on \(n\) points, then all the spaces considered are spaces of real-valued continuous functions of one variable. The norms minimized are the uniform and \(L_p\) norms (the special nature of the \(L_2\)-norm is not a topic). The paper lists over 200 references dating back to Chebyshev's 1859 works. This ambitious undertaking makes many useful observations. The topics discussed are: linear approximation in \({\mathbb R}^n\), linear \(l_1\) approximation in \({\mathbb R}^n\), linear \(l_p\) approximation in \({\mathbb R}^n\) (\(p\not= 2\)), linear Chebyshev approximation in \({\mathbb R}^n\), linear Chebyshev approximation in \(C[a,b]\), Chebyshev approximation by splines with fixed knots, nonlinear approximation in \({\mathbb R}^n\), rational approximation in \({\mathbb R}^n\), nonlinear approximation in \(C[a,b]\), nonlinear Chebyshev approximation in \(C[a,b]\), nonlinear Chebyshev approximation in \(C[a,b]\)-special cases, rational approximation in \(C[a,b]\), and Chebyshev approximation by spline functions with free knots.