News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Circular Harmonics by gus_massa on Friday October 29, 2021 @07:53PM (#29044791)
I think the standard name is "Besell Functions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessel_function
Re:Circular Harmonics by cshimmin on Friday October 29, 2021 @08:07PM (#29044878)
Not really. In Mathematics "circle" refers to a boundary of a disk. So it's a 1D periodic manifold, and the circular harmonics/Fourier series are the basis for such periodic functions. The bessel functions give a basis for the radial part of 2D solutions to a certain class of differential equations on a 2D disk. Incidentally the radial part of those solutions are circular harmonics.
Re:Circular Harmonics by icapybara on Friday October 29, 2021 @08:14PM (#29044914)
And there are many. Zernike polynomials are a common one.
Re:Circular Harmonics by chillingeffect on Friday October 29, 2021 @09:34PM (#29045269)
Not a wizard or anything but reading wikipedia:

Bessel functions for integer α are also known as cylinder functions or the cylindrical harmonics

Re:Circular Harmonics by gus_massa on Saturday October 30, 2021 @01:42PM (#29050714)
Bessel functions are useful when you must solve the volume of the cylinder (or the volume outside a cylinder). If you only care about the surface of the cylinder, you must use the Fourier series in one direction and the Fourier transform in the other direction.

I (GGP comment) was wrong.

Re:Circular Harmonics by gus_massa on Friday October 29, 2021 @08:10PM (#29044891)
You are right.
Re:Circular Harmonics by xyzzy21 on Saturday October 30, 2021 @09:44AM (#29048700)
No. Bessel functions are the solution to many differential equations posed in cylindrical coordinates.

Legendre polynomials are what we are seeing here which are solutions to many differential equations posed in spherical coordinates.

Classical sine/cosine Fourier solutions are the solutions to many differential equations posed in cartesian coordinates.

So these spherical solutions should also remind people of atomic quantum "orbital" shapes because those are solutions to Schrödinger's (differential) equations in spherical coordinates.