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The Use of Integral Transforms - Compress

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655 views1 page

The Use of Integral Transforms - Compress

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udhavakaraikarma
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Book Reviews zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA

THE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
USE OF INTEGRAL TRANSFORMS, by The state prerequisite of a good
Ian N. Sneddon. 539 pages, diagrams, knowledge of the methods of advanced
6ax9)in. New York, McGraw-Hill, calculus and solution of elementary
1972. Price, $21.50. differential equations seems adequate for
most of the material in the book, although
The author’s aim, “to provide an intro- some of the applications, such as in
duction to the use of integral transforms quantum mechanics, may not be fully
for students of applied mathematics, appreciated or understood by the reader
physics and engineering”, is admirably with minimal prerequisite knowledge. A
achieved in this very readable book. background in complex variables may be
In Chap. 1, using various boundary- helpful. There are few misprints, but some
value problems as motivation, the author of these, such as the author’s middle
introduces the Fourier, Laplace, Mellin initial on the cover of the book, are indeed
and Hankel transforms, which are the notable.
topics, respectively, of Chaps. 2-5. The In all, Professor Sneddon has written a
more specialized Kontorovich-Levedev book well suited for a first year under-
and Mehler-Fock transforms are treated graduate doing a science or engineering
in the next two chapters which also course that is explicitly concerned with
contain applications of the transforms the use and application of integral
transforms. The book should also be a
to diverse areas: including statistics,
valuable addition to science, engineering
quantum mechanics, elasticity, diffusion
and mathematics libraries.
problems, potential problems in various i, y
regions, vibration problems and mixed d-S WILLIAM L. PERRY
boundary value problems. Chapters 8 and .- zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWV
Department of Mathematics
9 contain finite versions of some of the Texm A & M University
transforms and a brief, though rigorous, College Station, Texas
introduction to generalized functions,
respectively. There are two appendices:
one on Bessel functions and one consisting
of tables of transforms.
While the author defines the different EINSTEIN: THE LIFE AND TIMES, by
transforms on sufficiently wide classes of Ronald W. Clark. 718 pages, illus.,
functions for many physical applications, 6 x 9 in. New York and Cleveland, The
the reader does not see any of the beautiful World Publishing Co., 1971. Price,
applications of generalized integral trans- $15.00 hard cover. New York, Avon.
forms. It seems that the author has tried Price, $1.95 paperback.
to strike zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
a medium between a much
longer book with a rigorous treatment of To say that this is the best biography of
generalized integral transforms, and a Einstein we have is to give it insufficient
heuristic introduction to generalized in- praise : it is, in effect, the only adequate
tegral transforms at the outset and formal one. Of earlier biographies the only two of
use of the concepts throughout the text. repute are those by Seelig and Frank.
While each reader may decide the relative However, while Seelig’s biography con-
merits of such an approach, the reviewer tains a great deal of interesting (though
feels it is appropriate. As it is, the book largely undigested) documentary material
seems to be of proper length. Furthermore, on Einstein’s Swiss period it deals with
the pitfalls of an intuitive approach not almost everything else in one long but
followed by rigorous justification are inadequate chapter; and Frank’s book
avoided. Also, the interested reader is was published before Einstein’s death and
referred by the author to A. H. Zemanian’s was the result of very little archive
books on generalized integral transforms. research. For the rest we have large

79

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