Spectral theorem
Teorema de descomposición espectral
- Date
- 1929 · confidence medium
- Place
- Berlin, Germany
- Credited to
- John von Neumann gave the general form for self-adjoint operators (bounded or not) on Hilbert spaces (1929); preceded by Cauchy's finite-dimensional results and Hilbert and Hellinger's work on the bounded case (1904-1910).
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Identifies the conditions under which a self-adjoint or normal operator on a Hilbert space admits a diagonal decomposition in its eigenvalues, generalising matrix diagonalisation to infinite dimensions.
What it led to
- Mathematical foundation of Born, Heisenberg and Jordan's formulation of quantum mechanics
- Basis of modern operator theory and functional analysis
- Essential tool for solving differential and integral equations