This is a new and enlarged English edition of the book which, under the title "Formeln und Satze fur die Speziellen Funktionen der mathe matischen Physik" appeared in German in 1946. Much of the material (part of it unpublished) did not appear in the earlier editions. We hope that these additions will be useful and yet not too numerous for the purpose of locating .with ease any particular result. Compared to the first two (German) editions a change has taken place as far as the list of references is concerned. They are generally restricted to books and monographs and accomodated at the end of each individual chapter. Occasional references to papers follow those results to which they apply. The authors felt a certain justification for this change. At the time of the appearance of the previous edition nearly twenty years ago much of the material was scattered over a number of single contributions. Since then most of it has been included in books and monographs with quite exhaustive bibliographies. For information about numerical tables the reader is referred to "Mathematics of Computation", a periodical publis hed by the American Mathematical Society; "Handbook of Mathe matical Functions" with formulas, graphs and mathematical tables National Bureau of Standards Applied Mathematics Series, 55, 1964, 1046 pp., Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., and FLETCHER, MILLER, ROSENHEAD, Index of Mathematical Tables, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.) .. There is a list of symbols and abbreviations at the end of the book.

This new adaptation of Arfken and Weber's best-selling Mathematical Methods for Physicists, fifth edition, is the most modern collection of mathematical principles for solving physics problems.

With students of Physics chiefly in mind, we have collected the material on special functions that is most important in mathematical physics and quan tum mechanics. We have not attempted to provide the most extensive collec tion possible of information about special functions, but have set ourselves the task of finding an exposition which, based on a unified approach, ensures the possibility of applying the theory in other natural sciences, since it pro vides a simple and effective method for the independent solution of problems that arise in practice in physics, engineering and mathematics. For the American edition we have been able to improve a number of proofs; in particular, we have given a new proof of the basic theorem (§3). This is the fundamental theorem of the book; it has now been extended to cover difference equations of hypergeometric type (§§12, 13). Several sections have been simplified and contain new material. We believe that this is the first time that the theory of classical or thogonal polynomials of a discrete variable on both uniform and nonuniform lattices has been given such a coherent presentation, together with its various applications in physics.

The subject of special functions is often presented as a collection of disparate results, which are rarely organised in a coherent way. This book answers the need for a different approach to the subject. The authors' main goals are to emphasise general unifying principles coherently and to provide clear motivation, efficient proofs, and original references for all of the principal results. The book covers standard material, but also much more, including chapters on discrete orthogonal polynomials and elliptic functions. The authors show how a very large part of the subject traces back to two equations - the hypergeometric equation and the confluent hypergeometric equation - and describe the various ways in which these equations are canonical and special. Providing ready access to theory and formulas, this book serves as an ideal graduate-level textbook as well as a convenient reference.

Special functions enable us to formulate a scientific problem by reduction such that a new, more concrete problem can be attacked within a well-structured framework, usually in the context of differential equations. A good understanding of special functions provides the capacity to recognize the causality between the abstractness of the mathematical concept and both the impact on and cross-sectional importance to the scientific reality. The special functions to be discussed in this monograph vary greatly, depending on the measurement parameters examined (gravitation, electric and magnetic fields, deformation, climate observables, fluid flow, etc.) and on the respective field characteristic (potential field, diffusion field, wave field). The differential equation under consideration determines the type of special functions that are needed in the desired reduction process. Each chapter closes with exercises that reflect significant topics, mostly in computational applications. As a result, readers are not only directly confronted with the specific contents of each chapter, but also with additional knowledge on mathematical fields of research, where special functions are essential to application. All in all, the book is an equally valuable resource for education in geomathematics and the study of applied and harmonic analysis. Students who wish to continue with further studies should consult the literature given as supplements for each topic covered in the exercises.

An extensive summary of mathematical functions that occur in physical and engineering problems

An overview of special functions, focusing on the hypergeometric functions and the associated hypergeometric series.