1. Fundamental concept
The notion of distribution, originally called generalized function, is a recent but fundamental concept for physicists. Introduced empirically by Dirac at the turn of the century, this tool found a rigorous mathematical formulation in the years 1945-1950, mainly thanks to the work of Laurent Schwartz. Among the distributions, Dirac's delta function, now known as the Dirac distribution, plays an essential role.
The delta function was introduced as a limit, when ε → 0
+
of functions (or functions of the same type) (figure
1
) :
.
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Fundamental concept
First definitions
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