Pierre-Simon Laplace1749–1827
Spherical harmonics
French mathematician and astronomer whose work on gravitation gave rise to spherical harmonics, the ways a sphere can ripple, each a pattern of lobes around it.
Harmonic Shells
A spherical harmonic pushes a sphere into lobes. Latitude contours describe its surface like topographic lines wrapped around a sculpture.
About this shape
Real sectoral spherical harmonics · radial surfaces
The radial displacement is proportional to sin(θ)^m cos(mφ), a real sectoral spherical harmonic up to normalisation. Changing m changes the lobe count. All contours are sampled on the same radial surface; rear portions fade to reveal the volume.
Behind the mathematics