Operational Methods in Mathematical Physics

This essay-review of Jeffreys’ very welcome and valuable Tract with the above title has been written at the editor’s request. Many readers of the Gazette must have heard of Heaviside’s operational method of solving the equations of dynamics and mathematical physics. If they have tried to learn about them from Heaviside’s own works, they have attempted a difficult task. Nothing more obscure than his mathematical writings is known to me. A Cambridge Tract is now at their disposal. Prom it much may be learned; but the air of mystery still—at least in part—remains.