Handbook of Calculus of Variations for Absolute Beginners

The book aims at endowing any student with a survival toolkit to start safely diving into the realm of C alculus of V ariations. In summary, the latter is a part of mathematical analysis devoted to minimization/maximization problems. A great effort has been made to present the themes and methods considered in the book in the simplest possible way: the reader will not find here general statements or proofs based on general abstract theories. In contrast, the main focus of the book is on introduci