Abstract
HARMONIC analysis appeals both to those interested in the mathematical eccentricities exhibited by Fourier expansions and to those concerned merely with the practical question of analysing empirical data into their constituent harmonics. The present volume, by catering in an interesting manner for the latter class, endeavours at the same time to focus the interest of its members on problems of more theoretical importance. In many respects the treatment is novel, and differs materially from that adopted in text-books of this nature. One is accustomed on picking up a “practical” book on harmonic analysis to find the usual medley of special methods unco-ordinated by any guiding principle for determining the coefficients. While certain of these find their place here, the author has centred a great part of his discussion around the expression for the coefficients in terms of the discontinuities of the function to be analysed and its successive differential coefficients, and on this as a basis he develops a number of elegant and at the same time comparatively accurate approximations to the coefficients. In practice these expressions are in a form suitable for numerical computation.
A Practical Treatise on Fourier's Theorem and Harmonic Analysis: for Physicists and Engineers.
By Albert Eagle. Pp. xiv + 178. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1925.) 9s. net.
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[Book Reviews]. Nature 116, 859 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116859b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116859b0