In mathematics, the Beltrami equation, named after Eugenio Beltrami, is the partial differential equation for w a complex distribution of the complex variable z in some open set U, with derivatives that are locally L2, and where μ is a given complex function in L∞(U) of norm less than 1, called the Beltrami coefficient. Classically this differential equation was used by Gauss to prove the existence locally of isothermal coordinates on a surface with analytic Riemannian metric. Various techniques have been developed for solving the equation. The most powerful, developed in the 1950s, provides global solutions of the equation on C and relies on the Lp theory of the Beurling transform, a singular integral operator defined on LP(C) for all 1 < p < ∞. The same method applies equally well on the