Appears in collections : Special events, Lagrange Days, Lagrange Days / Journées Lagrange

The most important works of the young Lagrange were two very learned memoirs on sound and its propagation. In a tour de force of mathematical analysis, he solved the relevant partial differential equations in a novel manner and he applied the solutions to a number of acoustic problems. Although Euler and d'Alembert may have been the only contemporaries who fully appreciated these memoirs, their contents anticipated much more of Fourier analysis than is usually believed. On the physical side, Lagrange properly explained the functioning of string and air-column instruments, although he did not accept harmonic analysis as we now understand it. Lagrange - acoustics - propagation of sound - harmonic analysis - Fourier analysis - vibrating strings - organ pipes