“就像从帽子里拎出兔子”——从陈难先的一个工作说起

"As if pulling a rabbit out of a hat"——On a work of Nanxian Chen

扼要介绍了声子比热和黑体辐射的逆问题,以及陈难先用数论莫比乌斯反演定理给出的解.英国《自然》(Nature)杂志主编玛多仕对陈难先这个工作的长篇评论,对促成和推动这一领域随后20年来的快速发展起了重要的作用.

A brief review is presented of two inverse problems concerning the specific heat of phonons and black body radiation,and the solution given by Nanxian Chen using the M¨obius inversion formula in number theory.The page-long comment of John Maddox in Nature on Chen＇s work played an important role in promoting this area of research in the subsequent twenty years.