Inverse scattering transform
In mathematics, the inverse scattering transform is a method for solving some non-linear partial differential equations. It is one of the most important developments in mathematical physics in the past 40 years. The method is a non-linear analogue, and in some sense generalization, of the Fourier transform, which itself is applied to solve many linear partial differential equations. The name "inverse scattering method" comes from the key idea of recovering the time evolution of a potential from the time evolution of its scattering data: inverse scattering refers to the problem of recovering a potential from its scattering matrix, as opposed to the direct scattering problem of finding the scattering matrix from the potential.