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Behind the Laplace transform
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The Laplace transform is perhaps the mathe-
matical signature of the electrical engineer,
having a long history of application to prob-
lems of electrical engineering. It changes
some of the most important differential
equations of physics into algebraic equations,
which are generally far easier to solve.
Despite its Gallic name, the transform
originates with the Swiss mathematician,
Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), who in 1744
wrote integrals that look much like the mod-
ern version. These were adapted by the
Italian-French mathematical physicistJoseph
Louis Lagrange (1736-1813) to the needs of
probability theory, and his work in turn in-
fluenced the Frenchman Pierre Simon
Laplace (1749-1827).
By 1785 Laplace was writing the almost
modem Laplace transform [Equation 1,
blackboard]. Today it is still used, as the
Mellin transform, to solve certain differen-
tial equations with variable coefficients. But
an electrical engineer would write it differ-
ently [Equation 2, blackboard].
Then in 1807 Laplace’s fellow-
countryman, Joseph Fourier, published the
first monograph describing the heat diffusion
equation. Intrigued, Laplace tried his hand
at solving it, obtaining results that in turn in-
spired Fourier’s discovery of his own
transform.
The connection between the Fourier
transform (used by EEs to study the power
and energy spectra of signals) and the
Laplace transform is intimate, but they are
not equivalent. For example, the step func-
tion has a Laplace transform, but not a Fou-
rier transform. And while the Fourier trans-
form is useful in finding the steady-state
output of a linear circuit in response to a
periodic input, the Laplace transform can
provide both the steady-state and transient
responses for periodic and aperiodic inputs.
For the modem EE, the lure of the
Laplace transform is its ability to map the
complicated operation of convolution into
multiplication. This integral has for decades
driven electrical engineering undergraduates
to contemplate theology either for salvation
or as an alternative career. The equation
Paul J. Nahin University of New Hampshire
60
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states that if x(t)is the input to a linear sys-
tem with impulse response h(t), then the
output, y(t), is x(t) convolved with h(t)
[Equation3, blackboard]. But if Y(s)andX(s)
are the associated Laplace transforms, this
imposing integral is completely tamed
[Equation 4, blackboard].
In one of those astonishing coincidences
that could mean mathematics is not just a
game of made-up rules, the convolution in-
tegral also plays a central role in the theory
of random variables: if x(t) and h(t) are the
probability density functions (pdfs) of two
independent random variables, X and H ,
then the pdf, y(t), of Y = X + H is found
by convolving the pdfs of X and H . The
Laplace transform consequently sees a lot
of use in probability theory, where Laplace
first found it.
Over a century had to elapse, though, be-
fore these sophisticated applications of the
Laplace transform could evolve from the
form in which Laplace left it in 1827. For
EEs, the next big advance was made by the
eccentric Englishman Oliver Heaviside
(1850-1925). He reduced differential equa-
tions directly to algebra by representing time
differentiation as an operator. He usedp, as
inpx = dx/dt andpZx = d2x/dt2,while 1Ip (x)
= the integral of x dt, and then manipulated
these equations using any algebraic trick he
could think of, including his famous Heavi-
side expansion theorem, which is essentially
the partial fraction expansion of modem
Laplace theory.
But Heaviside was notoriously uncon-
cerned with rigor. For instance, he never
blinked an eye when fractional operators,
such asp”, arose. This lofty attitude of his
greatly delayed acceptance of his work, even
though fractional operators were already old
news in mathematics.
Before he died, Heaviside exchanged
several letters with mathematician Thomas
John I’Anson Bromwich (1875-1929) of Cam-
bridge University in England. Bromwich es-
0018-923519110003-0060$1.0001991IEEE
tablished the missing rigor by showing how
to interpret Heaviside’s work in terms of
complex, Laplace-like integrals; but his sui-
cide in 1929, before he could promulgate
these new ideas, probably accounts for his
anonymity among EEs today.
Until the end of the 1930s, the more ad-
vanced EEs continued to use Heaviside’s ad
hoc techniques. But lesser analysts were all
too often swallowed up in the dangers of
methods a master like Heaviside could in-
tuitively sense and sidestep.
Then, in 1937, the German mathematician
Gustav Doetsch published his book Theorie
und Anwendung der h p h e - T r a m f m h i m .
That same year, L.A. Pipes published the
first explicit application of the method to
electrical engineering problems in
Philosophical Magazine, in a paper titled
“Laplacian Transform Circuit Analysis.”
These works reduced Heaviside’s tricks to
routine methods. The technique quickly
spread, and in the United States, Transients
in Linear Systems: studied by the Laplace
Transformation-the still classic text, known
to generations of EEs as “Gardner and
Barnes”-was published in 1942.
More recently still, the development of
computer programs that simulate even high-
ly nonlinear circuits has threatened the prac-
tical importance of the Laplace transform.
Small enough to run on desktop PCs, yet
powerful enough to provide the steady-state
and transient behaviors of multistage elec-
tronic circuits, such software packages have
made the Laplace transform more important
for the theoretician than for the practical
designer and analyst. Will the Laplace trans-
form (like stress analysis in bridge struts)be-
come one of those concepts learned in en-
gineeering school but never used on the job?
TO PROBE FURTHER. A good guide to the early
literature on the Laplace transform and
Heaviside’s methods is Thomas J. Higgins,
“History of the Operational Calculus as
Used in Electric Circuit Analysis,” Electri-
cal Engineering, Vol. 68, January 1949,
pp. 42-45.
Also see “Strange Mathematics,” Chap-
ter 10 of Oliver Heaviside:Sage In Solitude
by Paul J. Nahin (IEEE Press, New York,
1988) and “Euler’s Version of the Laplace
Transform” by Michael A.B. Deak in in The
American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 87,
April 1980, pp. 264-269.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Paul J. Nahin is associate
professor of electrical engineering at the
University of New Hampshire in Durham.
A member of the IEEE History Committee,
his newest book is Time Machines: Time
Travel in Physics and Science Fiction. +
IEEE SPECTRUM MARCH 1991