Article | REF: AF144 V1

Distributions - Operations and derivatives

Author: Michel DOISY

Publication date: October 10, 2004

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1. Fundamental concept

The notion of distribution, originally called generalized function, is a recent but fundamental concept for physicists. Introduced empirically by Dirac at the turn of the century, this tool found a rigorous mathematical formulation in the years 1945-1950, mainly thanks to the work of Laurent Schwartz. Among the distributions, Dirac's delta function, now known as the Dirac distribution, plays an essential role.

The delta function was introduced as a limit, when ε → 0 + of functions (or functions of the same type) (figure 1 ) :

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