Eigenvalue Computation in the 20th Century

This paper sketches the main research developments in the area of computational meth­ ods for eigenvalue problems during the 20th century. The earliest of such methods dates back to work of Jacobi in the middle of the nineteenth century. Since computing eigenvalues and vectors is essentially more complicated than solving linear systems, it is not surprising that highly significant developments in this area started with the introduction of electronic computers around 1950. In the early decades of this century, however, important theoretical developments had been made from which computational techniques could grow. Research in this area of numerical linear algebra is very active, since there is a heavy demand for solving complicated problems associated with stability and perturbation analysis for practical appli­ cations. For standard problems, powerful tools are available, but there still remain many open problems. It is the intention of this contribution to sketch the main developments of this century, especially as they relate to one another, and to give an impression of the state of the art at the turn of our century