![]() Cover of a 1996 reissue of the fourth edition of the book. | |
Author | Edmund T. Whittaker and George N. Watson |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | Mathematics |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Publication date | 1902 |
A Course of Modern Analysis: an introduction to the general theory of infinite processes and of analytic functions; with an account of the principal transcendental functions (colloquially known as Whittaker and Watson) is a landmark textbook on mathematical analysis written by Edmund T. Whittaker and George N. Watson, first published by Cambridge University Press in 1902. [1] The first edition was Whittaker's alone, but later editions were co-authored with Watson.
Its first, second, third, and the fourth edition were published in 1902, [2] 1915, [3] 1920, [4] and 1927, [5] respectively. Since then, it has continuously been reprinted and is still in print today. [5] [6] A revised, expanded and digitally reset fifth edition, edited by Victor H. Moll, was published in 2021. [7]
The book is notable for being the standard reference and textbook for a generation of Cambridge mathematicians including Littlewood and Godfrey H. Hardy. Mary L. Cartwright studied it as preparation for her final honours on the advice of fellow student Vernon C. Morton, later Professor of Mathematics at Aberystwyth University. [8] But its reach was much further than just the Cambridge school; André Weil in his obituary of the French mathematician Jean Delsarte noted that Delsarte always had a copy on his desk. [9] In 1941, the book was included among a "selected list" of mathematical analysis books for use in universities in an article for that purpose published by American Mathematical Monthly. [10]
Some idiosyncratic but interesting problems from an older era of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos are in the exercises.
The book was one of the earliest to use decimal numbering for its sections, an innovation the authors attribute to Giuseppe Peano. [11]
Below are the contents of the fourth edition:
George B. Mathews, in a 1903 review article published in The Mathematical Gazette opens by saying the book is "sure of a favorable reception" because of its "attractive account of some of the most valuable and interesting results of recent analysis". [12] He notes that Part I deals mainly with infinite series, focusing on power series and Fourier expansions while including the "elements of" complex integration and the theory of residues. Part II, in contrast, has chapters on the gamma function, Legendre functions, the hypergeometric series, Bessel functions, elliptic functions, and mathematical physics.
Arthur S. Hathaway, in another 1903 review published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society , notes that the book centers around complex analysis, but that topics such as infinite series are "considered in all their phases" along with "all those important series and functions" developed by mathematicians such as Joseph Fourier, Friedrich Bessel, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Adrien-Marie Legendre, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Niels Henrik Abel, and others in their respective studies of "practice problems". [13] He goes on to say it "is a useful book for those who wish to make use of the most advanced developments of mathematical analysis in theoretical investigations of physical and chemical questions." [13]
In a third review of the first edition, Maxime Bôcher, in a 1904 review published in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society notes that while the book falls short of the "rigor" of French, German, and Italian writers, it is a "gratifying sign of progress to find in an English book such an attempt at rigorous treatment as is here made". [1] He notes that important parts of the book were otherwise non-existent in the English language.
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A Treatise on the Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies is a treatise and textbook on analytical dynamics by British mathematician Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker. Initially published in 1904 by the Cambridge University Press, the book focuses heavily on the three-body problem and has since gone through four editions and has been translated to German and Russian. Considered a landmark book in English mathematics and physics, the treatise presented what was the state-of-the-art at the time of publication and, remaining in print for more than a hundred years, it is considered a classic textbook in the subject. In addition to the original editions published in 1904, 1917, 1927, and 1937, a reprint of the fourth edition was released in 1989 with a new foreword by William Hunter McCrea.
Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker was a British mathematician, physicist, historian of science, and philosopher who authored three titles that remain in circulation over a century after their initial publications. His bibliography includes several books and over one hundred published papers on a variety of subjects, including mathematics, astronomy, mathematical physics, theoretical physics, philosophy, and theism. Whittaker's bibliography in the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society categorises his publications into three categories: books and monographs, maths and physics articles, and biographical articles; the bibliography excludes works published in popular magazines like Scientific American. The bibliography includes eleven total books and monographs, fifty-six maths and physics articles, thirty-five philosophy and history articles, and twenty-one biographical articles. In the bibliography compiled by William Hunter McCrea in 1957, there are thirteen books and monographs and the same journal articles; McCrea counts all three volumes of A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity as separate books and excludes the same papers. Whittaker's contributions to Scientific American include two book reviews and a popular article on mathematics.
Douglas Arthur Quadling (1926–2015) was an English mathematician, school master and educationalist who was one of the four drivers behind the School Mathematics Project (SMP) in the 1960s and 70s.
Victor Hugo Moll is a Chilean American mathematician specializing in calculus.