Fritz John

The mathematical works of Fritz John whose deep and original ideas have had a great influence on the development of various fields in mathema­ tical analysis are made available with these volumes. His works are certainly well known to the experts, but knowledge of his contributions may not have spread as widely as it should have. For example, the concept of functions of bounded mean oscillations plays a central role in harmonic analysis today, but it is perhaps less known that this class of functions was introduced by John as early as 1961, motivated by his work in elasticity theory. With the publication of this collection, a wider circle of mathematicians will become familiar with, and appreciate, the fertile ideas of Fritz John. The organization of these two volumes was undertaken in consultation with the author. It was decided not to present the papers in chronological order, but rather to subdivide them into ten sections representing different mathematical topics to which John has contributed. Commentaries made by experts in the fields are appended to each section. Since the division into sec­ tions could, of course, not be made sharply, there are several overlaps. For instance, the comments of Louis Nirenberg refer to Elasticity Theory VI, Geometric Inequalities VIII, and Functions of Bounded Mean Oscillations IX. To help the reader, cross-references and remarks by the author will be found at the end of each section.