The Laplacian is a scalar (not a vector) differential operator that appears in important equations in physics and chemistry, such as Schrodinger's wave equation.
The operator, and the quintessential equation it appears in are named for Pierre-Simon Laplace, an 18th century French mathematician, who made critical contributions to the development of calculus and classical mechanics. The Laplace equation
appears in Laplace's Treatise on Celestial Mechanics, however, it was not original to Laplace, having been known for almost a half century.
Chemists typically write the Laplacian using the symbol ∇, however, some mathematicians will use Δ instead. Since chemists associate Δ with "change in" or "heat", depending on context, the source of the preference is obvious! The Laplacian can be constructed for higher dimensional spaces. The symbol used for the operator in 4-dimensions (called the d'Alembertia after another French mathematician of the 18th century, the quarrelsome Jean Le Rond d'Alembert) is . I presume the symbol for the Laplacian in 5-D would involve a pentagon?
What do Laplace and d'Alembert have to do with Napoleon Bonaparte? Laplace was appointed by Napoleon to the Ministry of the Interior, but removed from his post in less than a year for what Napoleon later wrote was his habit of bringing "the spirit of the infinitely small into the government." Napoleon was 14 when d'Alembert died, as far as I know, there is no direct connection.
- Home
- Angry by Choice
- Catalogue of Organisms
- Chinleana
- Doc Madhattan
- Games with Words
- Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
- History of Geology
- Moss Plants and More
- Pleiotropy
- Plektix
- RRResearch
- Skeptic Wonder
- The Culture of Chemistry
- The Curious Wavefunction
- The Phytophactor
- The View from a Microbiologist
- Variety of Life
Field of Science
-
-
-
The Hayflick Limit: why humans can't live forever1 month ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
-
-
Course Corrections4 months ago in Angry by Choice
-
-
The Site is Dead, Long Live the Site2 years ago in Catalogue of Organisms
-
The Site is Dead, Long Live the Site2 years ago in Variety of Life
-
Does mathematics carry human biases?3 years ago in PLEKTIX
-
-
-
-
A New Placodont from the Late Triassic of China5 years ago in Chinleana
-
Posted: July 22, 2018 at 03:03PM6 years ago in Field Notes
-
Bryophyte Herbarium Survey6 years ago in Moss Plants and More
-
Harnessing innate immunity to cure HIV8 years ago in Rule of 6ix
-
WE MOVED!8 years ago in Games with Words
-
-
-
-
post doc job opportunity on ribosome biochemistry!9 years ago in Protein Evolution and Other Musings
-
Growing the kidney: re-blogged from Science Bitez9 years ago in The View from a Microbiologist
-
Blogging Microbes- Communicating Microbiology to Netizens10 years ago in Memoirs of a Defective Brain
-
-
-
The Lure of the Obscure? Guest Post by Frank Stahl12 years ago in Sex, Genes & Evolution
-
-
Lab Rat Moving House13 years ago in Life of a Lab Rat
-
Goodbye FoS, thanks for all the laughs13 years ago in Disease Prone
-
-
Slideshow of NASA's Stardust-NExT Mission Comet Tempel 1 Flyby13 years ago in The Large Picture Blog
-
in The Biology Files
The Who, What, When, Where and Why of Chemistry
Chemistry is not a world unto itself. It is woven firmly into the fabric of the rest of the world, and various fields, from literature to archeology, thread their way through the chemist's text.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Markup Key:
- <b>bold</b> = bold
- <i>italic</i> = italic
- <a href="http://www.fieldofscience.com/">FoS</a> = FoS