The subject matter of this book formed the substance of a mathematical se am which was worked by many of the great mathematicians of the last century. The mining metaphor is here very appropriate, for the analytical tools perfected by Cauchy permitted the mathematical argument to penetra te to unprecedented depths over a restricted region of its domain and enabled mathematicians like Abel, Jacobi, and Weierstrass to uncover a treasurehouse of results whose variety, aesthetic appeal, and capacity for arousing our astonishment have not since been equaled by research in any other area. But the circumstance that this theory can be applied to solve problems arising in many departments of science and engineering graces the topic with an additional aura and provides a powerful argument for including it in university courses for students who are expected to use mathematics as a tool for technological investigations in later life. Unfortunately, since the status of university staff is almost wholly determined by their effectiveness as research workers rather than as teachers, the content of undergraduate courses tends to reflect those academic research topics which are currently popular and bears little relationship to the future needs of students who are themselves not destined to become university teachers. Thus, having been comprehensively explored in the last century and being undoubtedly difficult .

Klappentext

This book develops the fundamental properties of elliptic functions and illustrates them by applications in geometry, mathematical physics and engineering. Its purpose is to provide an introductory text for private study by students and research workers who wish to be able to use elliptic functions in the solution of both pure and applied mathematical problems. In the first half of the book, a knowledge of no more than first year university mathematics is assumed of the reader. In the later chapters, the theory of functions of a complex variable is increasingly employed as an analytical tool. Accordingly, the book should prove helpful to mathematicians at all stages of an undergraduate or post-graduate course. The book is liberally supplied with sets of exercises (over 180 total) with which the reader can gain practice in the use of the functions.

Inhalt
1 Theta Functions.- 2 Jacobi's Elliptic Functions.- 3 Elliptic Integrals.- 4 Geometrical Applications.- 5 Physical Applications.- 6 Weierstrass's Elliptic Function.- 7 Applications of the Weierstrass Functions.- 8 Complex Variable Analysis.- 9 Modular Transformations..- Appendix A Fourier Series for a Periodic Analytic Function.- Appendix B Calculation of a Definite Integral.- Appendix C BASIC Program for Reduction of Elliptic Integral to Standard Form.- Appendix D Computation of Tables.- Table A. Theta Functions.- Table B. Nome and Complete Integrals of the First and Second Kinds as Functions of the Squared Modulus.- Table D. Legendre's Incomplete Integrals of First and Second Kinds.- Table E. Jacobi's Zeta and Epsilon Functions.- Table F. Sigma Functions.