XII.—Paraboloidal Co-ordinates and Laplace's Equation

Synopsis In this paper we examine the general paraboloidal co-ordinate system, in which the normal surfaces are elliptic or hyperbolic paraboloids, including as special cases the “parabolic plate” and the “plate with a parabolic hole”. We then show that normal solutions of Laplace's equation in these co-ordinates are given as products of three Mathieu functions, and apply this to the solution of boundary-value problems for Laplace's equation in these co-ordinates. In a subsequent paper the corresponding treatment of the wave equation will be given.