On John McCowan′s paper about solitary waves and its important influence to KdV (1895)
WANG Li-xia
(1 School of Science, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China；2 Academy of Mathematics & System Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China)
Abstract:
The John McCowan′s paper about solitary waves in 1891 is examined by textual analysis. McCowan summarized the fruits and deficiencies of the former studies, created the development of odd powers of tangent for shallow water, and got better results than all the former ones. His paper is a good start-point for later studies and especially an important inducement of KdV′s famous work, it also links the preceding and the following researches of the theory of solitary waves in the 19th century.
KeyWords:
John McCowan; solitary wave; KdV(1895); renormalization
