This text bridges the gap between the classic texts on potential theory and modern books on applied geophysics. It opens with an introduction to potential theory, emphasising those aspects particularly important to earth scientists, such as Laplace's equation, Newtonian potential, magnetic and electrostatic fields, and conduction of heat. The theory is then applied to the interpretation of gravity and magnetic anomalies, drawing on examples from modern geophysical literature. Topics explored include regional and global fields, forward modeling, inverse methods, depth-to-source estimation, ideal bodies, analytical continuation, and spectral analysis. The book includes numerous exercises and a variety of computer subroutines written in FORTRAN. Graduate students and researchers in geophysics will find this book essential.

Written by leading experts, this book provides a clear and comprehensive survey of the “status quo” of the interrelating process and cross-fertilization of structures and methods in mathematical geodesy. Starting with a foundation of functional analysis, potential theory, constructive approximation, special function theory, and inverse problems, readers are subsequently introduced to today’s least squares approximation, spherical harmonics reflected spline and wavelet concepts, boundary value problems, Runge-Walsh framework, geodetic observables, geoidal modeling, ill-posed problems and regularizations, inverse gravimetry, and satellite gravity gradiometry. All chapters are self-contained and can be studied individually, making the book an ideal resource for both graduate students and active researchers who want to acquaint themselves with the mathematical aspects of modern geodesy.

Introduction to fundamentals of potential functions covers the force of gravity, fields of force, potentials, harmonic functions, electric images and Green's function, sequences of harmonic functions, fundamental existence theorems, the logarithmic potential, and much more. Detailed proofs rigorously worked out. 1929 edition.

The topic with which I regularly conclude my six-term series of lectures in Munich is the partial differential equations of physics. We do not really deal with mathematical physics, but with physical mathematics; not with the mathematical formulation of physical facts, but with the physical motivation of mathematical methods. The oftmentioned "prestabilized harmony between what is mathematically interesting and what is physically important is met at each step and lends an esthetic - I should like to say metaphysical -- attraction to our subject. The problems to be treated belong mainly to the classical matherhatical literature, as shown by their connection with the names of Laplace, Fourier, Green, Gauss, Riemann, and William Thomson. In order to show that these methods are adequate to deal with actual problems, we treat the propagation of radio waves in some detail in Chapter VI.

This book is about harmonic functions in Euclidean space. This new edition contains a completely rewritten chapter on spherical harmonics, a new section on extensions of Bochers Theorem, new exercises and proofs, as well as revisions throughout to improve the text. A unique software package supplements the text for readers who wish to explore harmonic function theory on a computer.