Abstract
To the author's remark that the theory of the potential is very useful from the point of view of the physicist and very beautiful from the point of view of the mathematician, we may add that it introduces a class of functions of fundamental importance in connexion with wave mechanics. Whether they are best approached for this purpose in the way given by Prof. Macmillan is perhaps questionable, but there is no doubt that anyone who had worked through this volume would be quite familiar with many of their properties. The ground covered is much the same as in several of the larger treatises on electricity, but the subject is here approached with a minimum of specific reference to the nature of the field. A knowledge of the theory of integral equations is not assumed. The one criticism offered is that rather much space has been devoted in the early chapters to the solution of distinctly elementary problems.
Theoretical Mechanics: the Theory of the Potential.
Prof. William Duncan MacMillan. Pp. xiii + 469. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. London: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Ltd., 1930.) 25s. net.
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Our Bookshelf. Nature 127, 373 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/127373d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/127373d0
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