This chapter examines the Cauchy problem, or pure initial value problem, for the PME and the GPME in d-dimensional space, d = 1. It concentrates the main effort on the PME with zero forcing term. It considers solutions which are integrable with respect to the space variables, so-called solutions with finite mass, and develops the corresponding L1 theory. It establishes well-posedness for the Cauchy problem in this setting, which is the one most often found in relevant literature and applications. Keywords:Cauchy problem,
pure initial value problem,
PME,
GPME,
solutions with finite mass,
L1