Re: Today's jaw dropper

[PPARKER@TWSUVM.UC.TWSU.EDU]

> Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 15:35:13 -0700
> From: Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca>
>
> Even after Schwartz's work one of my references says
> the Dirac delta function was *not* considered a respectable
> function by mathematicians, but they admitted the use of a symbol
> with all the same properties. Physicists persist in this "error"
> with considerable profit, however.

If Dirac's delta is a function, then heat is a substance.

*************************
Phil Parker                            Email: pparker@twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu
Math. Dept., Wichita St. Univ.           Fax: 316-978-3748
   I find [in mathematics] a wonderful beauty. This is no science,
   this is art, where equations fall away to elements like resolving
   chords, and where always prevails a symmetry either explicit or
   multiplex, but always of a crystalline serenity.
                                      ---Turjan of Miir (Jack Vance)