Three Lectures on Neutral Functional Differential Equations

The main idea of this cycle is that mixed initial boundary value problems for partial differential equations of hyperbolic type in two dimensions modeling lossless propagation are a valuable source of functional differential equations, in particular of neutral type. Starting from the simplest examples there are discussed such topics as basic theory (including various explanations for "what could actually define a neutral equation"), stability and forced oscillations. Rather than giving strictly rigorous proofs, the good motivations and final results are given priority. It is author's strong belief that well formulated applied problems are able to supply interesting, appealing while not always easy to solve problems.