Methoden der mathematischen Physik
Methoden der mathematischen Physik (Methods of Mathematical Physics) is a 1924 book, in two volumes totalling around 1000 pages, published under the names of Richard Courant and David Hilbert.It contains presages of the finite element method, on which Courant would work subsequently, and which would eventually become basic to numerical analysis.While Courant played the major editorial role, many at the University of Göttingen were involved in the writing-up, and in that sense it was a collective production.On its appearance in 1924 it apparently had little direct connection to the quantum theory questions at the centre of the theoretical physics of the time.That changed within two years, since the formulation of Schrödinger's equation made the Hilbert–Courant techniques of immediate relevance to the new wave mechanics.