The theory of spherical and ellipsoidal harmonics,

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Catherine Asaro's Saga of the Skolian Empire has quietly become one of the most interesting, ambitious, and popular science-fiction series since Dune, captivating readers with its complex universe, its diverse cast of sympathetic characters, and its imaginative blend of hard SF, future history, military SF, space opera, family saga, and romance. Spherical Harmonics is the seventh book in the loosely organized series.

A woman comes to consciousness on a world she doesn't recognize, and fades out again--literally. As nonexistence and awareness alternate, the woman regains her memory, realizing she is Dyhianna Selei, the Ruby Pharaoh, titular head of the Skolian Empire, who was destroyed in a star-spanning battle that ravaged both her empire and that of its enemy, the Aristos. Instead of dying, Dyhianna was transported to a distant world via the quantum-mechanical universe of Hilbert space--and now she is in danger of disappearing permanently into that nonphysical universe. And that isn't her only problem. Her husband has been physically and psychologically scarred by his captivity in Aristo hands. She may have to overthrow the elected government of her own Empire in order to resurrect it from the ashes of the Radiance War and defend it from the powerful Aristos.

Spherical Harmonics follows (and sometimes overlaps) the events in The Radiant Seas, 031286714XThe Quantum Rose, and Ascendant Sun. Other books in the series include Primary Inversion, Catch the Lightning, and The Last Hawk. --Cynthia Ward

Book Description

Separated for decades by circumstance and political machinations, the Ruby Dynasty, hereditary rulers of Skolia, struggle to bring together the tattered remnants of their family in the shadow of a disastrous interstellar war. Too many have died, others are presumed lost, yet Dyhianna, the Ruby Pharaoh, must move quickly if they are reassume their rightful place as rulers of the Skolian Empire.

Customer Reviews:

Deep.......2007-09-09

Catherine Asaro's intellect is way beyond mine. I recommend reading her essay at the back of the book before you read the novel. The novel will make more sense if you do that. The Skolian Empire novels are all inter-related and I recommend buying all of them and reading them in the order of publication. I read several of them over a span of about three weeks and it was really cool to see the same event in one book from one character's viewpoint and then see the same event in another book from another character's viewpoint. She intertwines her novels in a very entertaining way. Her characters are real and she mixes erotic scenes, space battles, and suspense in a way that makes her books very difficult to put down.

Much better than the reviews say.......2006-02-04

This is much better than you would believe from the reviews. We finally learn about Dyhianna Selei the Ruby Pharaoh, titular head of the Skolian Empire. Previous books pictured Dyhianna as a lonely genious who wasn't quite human. Distanced from the rest of humanity by her genious as well as her position as one of the rulers of the Skolian empire. In this book Dyhianna is a misunderstood woman who struggles to be understood but doesn't quite make it due to her unique thought processes. After all who will understand a person who thinks in arithmatic equations instead of words. To her the struggle for control of interstellar space between the Skolian empire and Eube is a puzzle which should be reduced to mathmatic equations. The answers she gets are cryptic; not really amiable to comprehension by us lesser mortals. However whatever her modes of thought she is quite human; she feels fear when escaping from torture the Eubian concorde; she loves her family and will do anything to recover her lost husband; she is fiercely loyal to her friends. I liked this book and recommend it to all Asaro fans. It should be a welcome addition to the Skolian saga; filling in blanks in the story such as the role of Dhyianna Seli, the Ruby Pharoah at the time of the Radiance War.

We get to know Pharoah Dhyianna at last.......2002-11-02

In many ways this is a fill-in-the-blanks book in the Skolian saga. This book concentrates on Dhyianna Seli, the Ruby Pharoah at the time of the Radiance War.

Unlike many of the other books in this series, this one does not concentrate on a romance, including grand sex scenes. Instead this is a political outing, which describes what happened in a political sense at the end of the Radiance war (primary iverson & the radiant seas).

Dhyianna comes across as being absolutely essential to the empire and her complaints of the control the skolian assembly has over her family has a sort of hollow ring given how much of what happens in the empire revolves around her individual skills.

For some reason, in the other books you get the impression that the 'trader experiment' which produced the hightron race happened in the recent past, but in this book that event is redefinied as having taken place thousands of years ago (which makes more sense).

This is not the most inspired book in the series, but it's a definate building block to be read for filling out the Skolian/Allied/Trader universe and the interesting mess that is the Ruby Dynasty.

Catching up with the Skolian Empire, without the sex.......2002-10-01

If you follow the Saga of the struggling Skolian Empire, this volume will fill in some gaps, on the same timeline as Ascendant Sun(keep it to hand while reading). The oft-in-the-background Pharaoh, Dehya attempts to catch up with events, friends and family.

As a first person storyline, this time the narrator was unconvincing. Asaro managed this trick well twice with Kelric in earlier stories, so not sure what happened here.... Political earthquakes also rumble almost unnoticed...

A Grand Coalescence.......2002-08-31

Catherine Asaro's "Spherical Harmonic" is the latest in the Skolian Empire series, which could turn out to be one of the greatest sf series ever conceived. And maybe it's the best tale so far. Not only does it move the Skolian Empire series along in grand fashion, but it also brings some of the incidents in previous volumes (most notably "The Quantum Rose" and "The Last Hawk") that had seemed to be diversions into the "main line" of the series. In this episode Catherine zooms in on Dhyianna (Dehya) Selei, the Ruby Pharoah, who's been a shadowy presence in the series until now.

Catherine's time line, which appears at the end of every book in the series, simply tells us that in 2277-78, Dehya "coalesces." Exactly. The novel deals with rebirth, the physical rebirth of Dehya and of the Ruby Dynasty itself, as Dehya sets out to collect the Skolians' scattered surviving members (they've been decimated by a destructive war).

Dehya coalesces virtually naked and alone on a primitive world and doesn't quite know why. Throughout the book she keeps acquiring family members, friends, and allies (and clothing), and at the end is quite a formidable presence indeed. The structure in a way is similar to Ravel's "Bolero," which starts out with a single instrument and a single melodic line and ends colorfully and thunderously.

The story sweeps along in grand fashion, filled, as always, with action, romance, and painless lessons in quantum physics, as Dehya learns that sometimes she has to go against the people she admires and work with those she doesn't. All Catherine's characters are complex, reluctant heroes, and Dehya might be the most complex of all. She learns her lessons well and she learns the limits of power.

Notes and asides: Newcomers to the series should start with "Primary Inversion" and read the books in the order they're written in. And then, when you're caught up, you can wait breathlessly with the rest of us for "The Moon's Shadow," which is due out in 2003.

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An elementary treatise on spherical harmonics and subjects connected with them
N. M. Ferrers
Manufacturer: Cornell University Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1429700521
Release Date: 1969-12-31

Book Description

This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Historical Mathematics Monographs collection.

An Elementary Treatise on Fourier's Series and Spherical, Cylindrical, and Ellipsoidal Harmonics: With Applications to Problems in Mathematical Physics

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First treatise of math problem
few graphs, many examples

An Elementary Treatise on Fourier's Series and Spherical, Cylindrical, and Ellipsoidal Harmonics: With Applications to Problems in Mathematical Physics
William Elwood Byerly
Manufacturer: Adamant Media Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1402161832
Release Date: 2005-11-30

Book Description

This Elibron Classics edition is a facsimile reprint of a 1893 edition by Ginn and Company, Boston - New York - Chicago - London.

Customer Reviews:

First treatise of math problem.......2006-03-16

It' s important text to start study theory of thermal flow in one or two dimension. We can find a ease application of ellipsoidal harmonics and we have many examples that help the student to understand the math problem.

few graphs, many examples.......2006-01-29

Another in Dover's series of reissues of long out of print books. Here we get Byerly's masterful text on Fourier analysis. A century old. But the notation is essentially still used today. The font is old fashioned. Since partly to save costs, Dover did a photoreproduction of the original text, instead of resetting the text.

Another thing to note is that there are very few graphs, as compared to a modern book. Typical of texts of its time. But numerous examples are worked out, and you can profitably go through these.

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An elementary treatise on Fourier's series and spherical, cylindrical, and ellipsoidal harmonics with applications to problems in mathematical physics. By William Elwood Byerly.
Michigan Historical Reprint Series
Manufacturer: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1418182044
Release Date: 2005-12-20

Book Description

This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program.

Analysis of Spherical Symmetries in Euclidean Spaces (Applied Mathematical Sciences)

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Analysis of Spherical Symmetries in Euclidean Spaces (Applied Mathematical Sciences)
Claus Müller
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387949496

Book Description

This self-contained book offers a new and direct approach to the theories of special functions with emphasis on spherical symmetry in Euclidean spaces of arbitrary dimensions. Written after many years of lecturing to mathematicians, physicists and engineers in scientific research institutions in Europe and the USA, it uses elementary concepts to present the spherical harmonics in a theory of invariants of the orthogonal group. One of the highlights of this book is the extension of the classical results of the spherical harmonics into the complex. This is particularly important for the complexification of the Funk-Hecke formula which successfully leads to new integrals for Bessel- and Hankel functions with many applications of Fourier integrals and Radon transforms. Exercises have been included to stimulate mathematical ingenuity and to bridge the gap between well known elementary results and their appearance in the new formations.

Constructive Approximation on the Sphere: With Applications to Geomathematics (Numerical Mathematics and Scientific Computation)

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Constructive Approximation on the Sphere: With Applications to Geomathematics (Numerical Mathematics and Scientific Computation)
W. Freeden , T. Gervens , and M. Schreiner
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

The subject of geomathematics focuses on the interpretation and classification of data from geoscientific and satellite sources, reducing information to a comprehensible form and allowing the testing of concepts. Sphere oriented mathematics plays an important part in this study and this book provides the necessary foundation for graduate students and researchers interested in any of the diverse topics of constructive approximation in this area. This book bridges the existing gap between monographs on special functions of mathematical physics and constructive approximation in Euclidean spaces. The primary objective is to provide readers with an understanding of aspects of approximation by spherical harmonics, such as spherical splines and wavelets, as well as indicating future directions of research. Scalar, vectorial, and tensorial methods are each considered in turn. The concentration on spherical splines and wavelets allows a double simplification; not only is the number of independent variables reduced resulting in a lower dimensional problem, but also radial basis function techniques become applicable. When applied to geomathematics this leads to new structures and methods by which sophisticated measurements and observations can be handled more efficiently, thus reducing time and costs.

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON FOURIER'S SERIES AND SPHERICAL, CYLINDRIC, AND ELLIPSOIDAL HARMONICS: With Applications to Problems in Mathematical Physics

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AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON FOURIER'S SERIES AND SPHERICAL, CYLINDRIC, AND ELLIPSOIDAL HARMONICS: With Applications to Problems in Mathematical Physics
William Elwood Byerly
Manufacturer: Cosimo Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

First published in 1893, Byerly's classic treatise on Fourier's series and spherical, cylindrical, and ellipsoidal harmonics has been used in classrooms for well over a century. This practical exposition acts as a primer for fields such as wave mechanics, advanced engineering, and mathematical physics. Topics covered include: . development in trigonometric series . convergence on Fourier's series . solution of problems in physics by the aid of Fourier's integrals and Fourier's series . zonal harmonics . spherical harmonics . cylindrical harmonics (Bessel's functions) . and more. Containing 190 exercises and a helpful appendix, this reissue of Fourier's Series will be welcomed by students of higher mathematics everywhere. American mathematician WILLIAM ELWOOD BYERLY (1849-1935) also wrote Elements of Differential Calculus (1879) and Elements of Integral Calculus (1881).

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON FOURIER'S SERIES AND SPHERICAL, CYLINDRICAL, AND ELLIPSOIDAL HARMONICS

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AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON FOURIER'S SERIES AND SPHERICAL, CYLINDRICAL, AND ELLIPSOIDAL HARMONICS
William Elwood Byerly
Manufacturer: Ginn and Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QAZ2VQ

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An Elementary Treatise on Fourier's Series and Spherical, Cylindrical, and Ellipsoidal Harmonics

Manufacturer: Ginn & Co, Boston
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000I99WAM

Customer Reviews:

when nothings seems right in life.......2005-11-10

There are many self help books. Og Mandino deserves a special place among the various authors to write on this topic. His message is very clear and practical. It is simple. The world would be a better place and there would be no threats or fears of terrorism. Og Mandino's books should be made compulsory reading in all schools all over the world to make a positive change. Only by hard work and persistence we will be able to make a positive change. It is our duty to be good to ourselves,and the world around us as we are part of the cosmic intelligence whether you accept it and like it or not. The message contained in this book is priceless and has stood the test of time.It is sad to see that we are still waiting and not acting.

Og, what happened?.......2004-06-11

I loved the original 'ragpicker' book by Og Mandino -- The Greatest Miracle in the World.' This sequel was written about 10 or 15 years later and something happened to Mr. Mandino in that time! He seemed more interested in telling you about all of his accomplishments, all of his material possessions, etc. than the inspirational message in the original book. Further, he replaced much of the God-based inspiration with politically correct platforms.

Just bizarre to me how an author could change that much. I read a couple other reviews from disappointed readers and ignored them. Now I wish I would have believed them.

I still love the older Og Mandino books, however, especially the Trilogy, but this one isn't worth the waste of time or money, or worth the disappointment in this author that I've looked up to....read at your own risk.

Disappointing.......2003-06-19

This book was extremely hard to read and appeared to be a bragging platform for the author. The majority of the book is full of the author proclaiming his success through his own words and the words of this mentor. I almost threw the book out the window when reading the passage, "Mister Og...Certainly you are no longer motivated by the need for money. I smiled thinking to myself that he already knew so much about me it was a good probability that he also had a good idea of my net worth." Use your time more wisely and find something more worthwhile to read.

Not quite a totally sad descent........2003-04-15

I enjoyed Mr. Mandino's first effort, _Greatest Salesman in the World_, for substantially different reasons than _Ragpicker_. _Salesman_ was short and to the point and had a clever ending, and the principles were well worth repeating. I read it a few times over and, encouraged, I went to the library and picked up all the Og Mandino books I could find--they were nice and short and if a few were half as good, I could learn a lot in a short time. Self-help books usually give me a temporary boost, but regrettably, after a while Og's oeuvres fell into a certain pattern where my main 'can-do' was that I could write better than this. Person is down in the dumps, person finds inspiration to get out of the dumps, the original source of inspiration dries up, person writes to others how to follow suit before the advice is lost forever. _Ragpicker_ seems to epitomize what can go wrong with a lazy yet prolific writing style.

I suppose for practical purposes this is all right; a person can see different yet similar positive messages, and these offset the sorts you get in everyday life. What is not so good is that the style has degenerated terribly, and events begin to parallel Mandino's life, and eventually adulation for Mandino slips in; Mr. Mandino forgets that it is the reader who is supposed to enjoy the book. There are slight drops from _Salesman_ to part II, where Hafid, the Greatest Salesman, starts his own self-help tour for peasants. You see a huge drop in the prequel to _Ragpicker_, _Greatest Miracle in the World_, when an angel-figure dubs Mandino's work a 'hand of God' work with various timeless classics.

But in _Ragpicker_ the only originality left is that Og drops in a weird bird to accompany the angel-figure we thought had died in _Miracle_. They then discuss how good Og's descriptions are of his place in Arizona(financed by his business successes, natch) and how the book was a great seller and Og can't believe it's true. There are several rounds of 'Couldn't a done it without you, sport,' a general lamentation of the human condition, and an assurance that More Needs To Be Done(the book holds true to these convictions.) Og then spends a lot of time in equal disbelief over various good and bad events while espousing the need for faith. It's not all self-focused as Og gives some recognition to other people's books that he likes but this makes _Ragpicker_ feel more like an effort at networking and showing the author's in with the right crowd than a book for someone who wants guidance. There are far too many novels that give up on having a plot of their own and collapse into post-modern meta-art, but _Ragpicker_ seems even shabbier.

Yet every time I read it, _Ragpicker_ is so laughably fatuous that I find myself cheered up and motivated, laughing while considering the very valid principles discussed--it's easier to work when you're happy, you know. So if Mr. Mandino's intention was, at bottom, to inspire people to do it even at his own expense, a back/forth commute where I read _Miracle_ and then _Ragpicker_ does that. They're both short and facile enough for such quick disposal, and I'm in such a good mood and ideas are buzzing around in my head so fast that things I've put off for months will get done. Their very act of being published encourages me as a writer, in fact. But they are not good literature, and people of a less sardonic bent than myself will find better guidance in _Salesman_.

My favorite Og Mandino Book.......2003-01-20

I cite this book, and this book, only, in my book, The Salami Theory, because I wish that each of us would spend more time as a ragpicker. Simon Potter is a mentor and example for all of us. Og Mandino has sold more inspirational books than anyone because he identifies a need, a corresponding truth, and weaves both in the form of a contemporary, easy-reading story. Those who question his ego, must first examine their own. Mandino has become great because he applied the Biblical principal of "he who humbles himself shall become great." I have benefitted from reading many of Mandino's works. This is the best.

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The Return of the Ragpicker
Og Mandino
Manufacturer: Bantam Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Regreso Del Trapero/Return of the Ragpicker

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Regreso Del Trapero/Return of the Ragpicker
Og Mandino
Manufacturer: Diana
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 968132269X

3 Titles By Og Mandino : The Greatest Miracle in the World A Better Way to Live The Return of the Ragpicker

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3 Titles By Og Mandino : The Greatest Miracle in the World A Better Way to Live The Return of the Ragpicker
Og Mandino
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Product Description

3 Titles By Og Mandino : The Greatest Miracle in the World A Better Way to Live The Return of the Ragpicker. three mmpb books.

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