Generalized function

In mathematics, generalized functions, or distributions, are objects extending the notion of functions. There is more than one recognized theory. Generalized functions are especially useful in making discontinuous functions more like smooth functions, and describing discrete physical phenomena such as point charges. They are applied extensively, especially in physics and engineering.

A common feature of some of the approaches is that they build on operator aspects of everyday, numerical functions. The early history is connected with some ideas on operational calculus, and more contemporary developments in certain directions are closely related to ideas of Mikio Sato, on what he calls algebraic analysis. Important influences on the subject have been the technical requirements of theories of partial differential equations, and group representation theory.

In the mathematics of the nineteenth century, aspects of generalized function theory appeared, for example in the definition of the Green's function, in the Laplace transform, and in Riemann's theory of trigonometric series, which were not necessarily the Fourier series of an integrable function. These were disconnected aspects of mathematical analysis at the time.

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