Re: Why "harmonic"

From: The World Wide Wade (waderameyxiii_at_comcast.remove13.net)
Date: 08/07/04 

Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2004 18:36:20 -0700

In article <cf0vqf$f1g$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
 israel@math.ubc.ca (Robert Israel) wrote:

> In article <cf0kpk$adf$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>,
> Robert Israel <israel@math.ubc.ca> wrote:
> >In article <cf0i6j$ipn$1@panix2.panix.com>,
> >Lee Rudolph <lrudolph@panix.com> wrote:
>
> >>The World Wide Wade <waderameyxiii@comcast.remove13.net> writes:
>
> >>>Laplace's equation. They were given the name "spherical harmonics" by
> >>>William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and Peter Tait in 1879.
>
> >>The Oxford English Dictionary gives the year of Thomson and Tait's
> >>coinage of "sphereical harmonics" as 1867.
>
> >That should be "spherical", of course
>
> >The term "harmonic analysis" is also attributed to Thomson and Tait.
> >T & T first came out in 1867 and went through a number of different
> >editions, which may explain the discrepancy. Apparently there was
> >a book by Ferres entitled "Spherical Harmonics" published in 1877,
> >so the 1879 date would be too late.
>
> I didn't find T & T in our library, but I did find "Life and Scientific
> Work of Peter Guthrie Tait" by C.G. Knott, which makes it clear that
> the appendix on "Spherical Harmonic Analysis" was indeed in the
> first edition. He also quotes from a letter Maxwell wrote to Tait
> in December 1867: "I believe you call Laplace's Coeffts Spherical
> Harmonics."

Thanks Robert. In our book we write "The term 'spherical harmonic' was
apparently first used in this context by William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and
Peter Tait (see [12], Appendix B)." The reference [12] is

William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and Peter Guthrie Tait, Treatise on natural
philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1879.

So from that I assumed 1879 was the year of birth of "spherical harmonics".
I'm not sure why we cite the 1879 edition of that book. I'll ask my
coauthors.