The purpose of this book is to describe as simply as possible a number of the ideas and methods which seem to be particularly helpful in the study of nonlinear boundary value problems for differential equations of the second order. Apart from the restriction to second order, the kinds of equations treated and the level of treatment are those common to introductory courses in differential equations which treat initial value problems. The reason for this restriction is that whereas nth order initial value problems are not essentially more difficult than first or second order, higher order boundary value problems are. Those of second order already show the difficulties but are becoming fairly well understood. Much of the material has only recently appeared in the mathematical literature, however, and cannot yet be found in the textbooks.
