The following question came to me when reading the famous paper of *ALT* and *LUCKHAUS*: "**Quasilinear elliptic-parabolic differential equations**" When looking at a (nonlinear degenerate) PDE like $$ \partial_t u - div (A(x,t,u,\nabla u)) = f(x,t) \text{ in } \Omega_T$$ $$ u(x,0) = u_0 \text{ in } \Omega$$ $$ u(x,t) = 0 \text{ in } \partial \Omega \times (0,T) $$ $$ A(x,t,u,\nabla u) \cdot n = 0 \text{ in } \partial \Omega \times (0,T) $$ one defines as weak solution as function u which satiesfies the following 2 equations: $$ \int_{\Omega_T} \partial_t u \, \phi dxdt + \int_{\Omega_T}(u - u_0) \partial_t \phi dxdt = 0$$ $$ \int_{\Omega_T} \partial_t u \, \phi dxdt + \int_{\Omega_T} A(x,t,u,\nabla u) \nabla \phi dxdt = \int_{\Omega_T} f \phi dxdt $$ Now I wonder about the first one. The deduction of the second is ok to me, as I can use the standard way (applying Gauß to the original PDE) - But I can't seem to find the deduction / motivation of equation 1. Any help or reference is welcome.