Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. In numerical mathematics, the relaxation method is a method for obtaining numerical approximations to the solutions of systems of equations, including certain types of elliptic partial differential equations, in particular Laplace''s equation and its generalization, Poisson''s equation. The function is assumed to be given on the boundary of a shape, and has to be computed on its interior. This relaxation method should not be confused with the unrelated relaxation technique in mathematical optimization.