\unsethebrew \bchapter{מבוא}{Preface} \label{mylabel} This is the preface. An integral equation of the first kind \begin{equation} Kf \; = \; \int_{a}^{b} k(s,t)f(t)dt \; = \; g(s) \end{equation} An integral equation of the first kind \begin{equation} K \;: \; L_2 [a,b] \; \longrightarrow \; L_2[a,b], \; k \; \in L_2([a,b] \times [a,b]) \end{equation} is known to be an ill-posed problem. \begin{eqnarray} R(K) \; + \; R(K)^{\perp} &=& K \;: \; L_2 [a,b] L_2([a,b] \times [a,b] \\ K \;: \; &=&L_2 [a,b] \; \\ Kf \; &=& \int_{a}^{b} k(s,t)f(t)dt \; = \; g(s) \end{eqnarray} The following is an example. It's but a short exerpt from a thesis which was subsequently submitted in a modified version. An integral equation of the first kind \begin{equation} Kf \; = \; \int_{a}^{b} k(s,t)f(t)dt \; = \; g(s) \end{equation} \begin{equation} K \;: \; L_2 [a,b] \; \longrightarrow \; L_2[a,b], \; k \; \in L_2([a,b] \times [a,b]) \end{equation} is known to be an ill-posed problem. The solution of (1) is the least square solution of minimal norm, and whenever $g$ belongs to \[ R(K) \; + \; R(K)^{\perp} K \;: \; L_2 [a,b] \; \longrightarrow \; L_2[a,b] k \; \in L_2([a,b] \times [a,b] \] such a unique solution exists. $R(K)$ is the range space of $K$ and $ R(K)^{\perp} $ its orthogonal subspace. It is also well known that, whenever the kernel $k$ belongs to $L_2$, the integral operator is compact (see Groetsch \cite{1}, pp.11-12). Thus, arbitrarily small changes in $g$ may cause arbitrarily large ones in $f$. It has already been pointed out that this sensitivity of $f$ will be the more severe, the faster the singular values of $K$ tend to zero (see Golberg \cite{2}, pp.36-40, Groetsch \cite{1}, p.2). An integral equation of the first kind \begin{equation} Kf \; = \; \int_{a}^{b} k(s,t)f(t)dt \; = \; g(s) \end{equation} \begin{equation} K \;: \; L_2 [a,b] \; \longrightarrow \; L_2[a,b], \; k \; \in L_2([a,b] \times [a,b]) \end{equation} is known to be an ill-posed problem. As an expression of this ill-posedness, for many numerical methods (e.g. Galerkin, collocation) the approximate solution of (1) fails in general to converge to the exact solution $f$. And even if it does converge, faster decrease of the singular values of the operator $K$ will involve faster increase of the condition numbers for the matrices approximating the operator. It is thus important to estimate the \begin{equation} \end{equation} growth of these (spectral) condition numbers. Lower bounds of the condition numbers are given by G.M.Wing in \cite{3} for both the Galerkin and collocation methods. An integral equation of the first kind \begin{equation} Kf \; = \; \int_{a}^{b} k(s,t)f(t)dt \; = \; g(s) \end{equation} \begin{equation} K \;: \; L_2 [a,b] \; \longrightarrow \; L_2[a,b], \; k \; \in L_2([a,b] \times [a,b]) \end{equation} is known to be an ill-posed problem. The main object of this work is bounding the condition number from both sides, in terms of the singular values of the operator $K$, the numerical method being a variant of finite-dimensional Tikhonov regularization (see Marti \cite{4}, \cite{5}, Groetsch \cite{1}). \begin{figure}[htbp] \epsfxsize=0.5\textwidth \epsffile{tst1.eps} \bcaptionff{דוגמה ראשונה לרשימת האיורים}{First English Caption to LOF}% {דוגמה ראשונה}{First English Caption} \end{figure} \begin{corolar}{$\!\!\! \bf :$} Under the assumptions of Corollary~2 - Corollary~1 and Theorems~2,3 hold when using the basis $\tilde v $ and $H_1 \; = \; H_2 \; = \; L_2 [0,1] $. \end{corolar} \begin{figure}[htbp] \epsfxsize=0.3\textwidth \epsffile{tst2.eps} \bcaptionff{דוגמא שניה לרשימת האיורים}{Second English Caption to LOF}% {דוגמה שניה}{Second English Caption} \end{figure} {\bf Proof:} The condition number is the same in the basis $v$ as in $\tilde v$. $\Box $