scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1467311

Publication date 28 June 2000

Bessel functions distributions eigenfunction expansion methods Fourier integral Fourier series Green's functions Laplace transform partial differential equations in physics and engineering perturbation methods power series method regular and singular Sturm-Liouville expansions separation of variables techniques

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to partial differential equations (35-01)

Review text

The book under review is a selfcontained presentation of the most important (from the point of view of engineers and physicists, but not only) mathematical methods for analyzing, solving, or approximating linear partial differential equations. Chapter One is mainly devoted to a short, but effective, review of the basic differential equations procedures which are frequently used in engineering applications. A brief introduction to the theory of distributions found its place here too. Chapter Two deals with: the power series method, Bessel functions, a user guide to the literature of special functions, and a short introduction to numerical methods opening a nice perspective for the analytic methods. The aim of Chapter Three is to present the main tool of the frequency-space methodology and modal analysis: the classical method of undetermined coefficients. Basic facts about Fourier integral, Laplace transform and Fourier series are also discussed. Chapter Four starts with a brief introduction to the Calculus of Variations and applications to Classical Mechanics via the Lagrange formalism. Then, the wave, heat, Laplace and Schrödinger equations are derived and the classification of second order partial differential equations is included. The main goal of Chapter Five is to present the separation of variables techniques by means of simple but convincing examples in order to unify the presentation of the next three chapters. Chapter Six deals with the theory of regular and singular Sturm-Liouville expansions which is carried out by means of a lot of illuminating examples (worked out and tabulated), motivated mainly by the two-dimensional Laplace equation. Chapter Seven extends the basic procedures introduced before to handle nonautonomous problems in higher dimensions. A compact table of solutions to the Laplace, heat and wave equations in various coordinate systems is also included in order to help the reader to use an expert system developed by the author jointly with S. Kadamani and available over the internet. Chapter Eight is mainly concerned with the use of Green's functions to solve nonhomogeneous partial differential equations, with special attention being paid to eigenfunction expansion methods. An analysis of the proper formulation of radiation problems is also discussed. Chapter Nine contains some basic facts on perturbation methods and their use in applied mathematics as well as an exposition of small-wave analysis. Appendix A presents the basics of numerical differentiation, integration and solution of equations, while Appendix B deals with the evaluation of two Bromwich integrals for some radiation problems considered in Chapter Eight. The book ends with a Reference List contaning 63 entries and an Index compilated with great care. This textbook contains a large variety of topics which are of interest for engineers and physicists and is very nicely written. Numerous illuminating examples and exercises, well-chosen and well-placed, are discussed in detail. In the reviewer's opinion, the main feature of this textbook consists in that the author succeded to keep the best possible balance between rigour and heuristic comprehension, so that all the topics included are easy to digest even by those having no stomach for abstract mathematics.

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