History
Lambert first considered the related Lambert's Transcendental Equation in 1758, which led to a paper by Leonhard Euler in 1783 that discussed the special case of wew. However the inverse of wew was first described by Pólya and Szegő in 1925. The Lambert W function was "re-discovered" every decade or so in specialized applications but its full importance was not realized until the 1990s. When it was reported that the Lambert W function provides an exact solution to the quantum-mechanical double-well Dirac delta function model for equal charges—a fundamental problem in physics—Corless and developers of the Maple Computer algebra system made a library search to find that this function was in fact ubiquitous to nature.
Read more about this topic: Lambert W Function
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.”
—Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)