'Although the editors admit that they cannot present an unequivocal explanation for the strange resilience of KirchhoffaEURO (TM)s flawed theory, their book is an admirable effort to meet this challenge ... It is a concerted effort to resolve a persistent riddle in the history of physics - and an example of how expert knowledge from different specialties may be focused on a target of common interest.'ISIS JournalThe 1882 paper by the mathematical physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff on diffraction theory is still being discussed to this day, but has never been translated into English. This volume contains the first English translation of the Kirchhoff treatise, as well as background and commentary on it. Included are a biographical introduction to Kirchhoff's life, an analysis of the reception to Kirchhoff's paper through the ages, a discussion on why Kirchhoff's theory manages to produce accurate predictions in spite of being 'wrong', and views on the theory as well as its predecessor and subsequent developments. This anthology will make all English-speaking scientists, engineers, historians, and interested laymen aware of the great fecundity of Kirchhoff's thought and historical context.

This book is a systematic and detailed exposition of different analytical techniques used in studying two of the canonical problems, the wave scattering by wedges or cones with impedance boundary conditions. It is the first reference on novel, highly efficient analytical-numerical approaches for wave diffraction by impedance wedges or cones. This text includes calculations of the diffraction or excitation coefficients, including their uniform versions, for the diffracted waves from the edge of the wedge or from the vertex of the cone; study of the far-field behavior in diffraction by impedance wedges or cones, reflected waves, space waves from the singular points of the boundary (from edges or tips), and surface waves; and the applicability of the reported solution procedures and formulae to existing software packages designed for solving real-world high-frequency problems encountered in antenna, wave propagation, and radar cross section. This book is for researchers in wave phenomena physics, radio, optics and acoustics engineers, applied mathematicians and specialists in mathematical physics and specialists in quantum scattering of many particles.