Bessel functions
Funciones de Bessel
- Date
- 1824 · confidence high
- Place
- Königsberg, Prussia (present-day Kaliningrad, Russia)
- Credited to
- Friedrich Bessel
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
As director of the Königsberg observatory, Bessel systematically studied this family of special functions in 1824, solutions to a differential equation that arises when separating variables in the Laplace or Helmholtz equation in cylindrical or spherical coordinates. They became an indispensable tool in problems of waves, heat and potentials with circular or cylindrical symmetry.
What it led to
- Standard tool in mathematical physics (waves, heat, potentials)
- Applications in antenna engineering and acoustics
Built on
- Daniel Bernoulli's earlier work on these functions in oscillating chain problems