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Re: Today's jaw dropper


On Tue, 7 Oct 1997 11:24:40 -0700 Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca> writes:

Mathematicians have often objected to the way physicists
do mathematics (e.g. Dirac's delta function) but usually have
recanted later and "legitimized" established physical practices
as bona fide mathematics.
***************************************************************************
Don't you mean the way electrical engineers do mathematics? Wasn't
Heaviside the originator of generalized functions and Laurent Schwarz the
legitimizer? I see Dirac's name, but ... Wouldn't the function precede
its derivative? Sidelight: Schwarz was the biggest name except for
Russell who marched in anti-Viet Nam War protests. I may have saved
the photograph.

Regards and apologies if I am wrong / Tom

P.S. Didn't Dirac have a VERY famous graduate student? Could it have
been Einstein even? I thought not.