In our earlier paper we have shown that the solutions of both the three-dimensional scalar wave equation, which is also the three-dimensional acoustic equation, and Maxwell’s equations have forms in the wave zone, which, except for a factor 1/
r
, represent one-dimensional wave motions along straight lines through the origin. We also showed that it is possible to reconstruct the exact solutions from the asymptotic forms. Thus we could prescribe the solutions in the wave zone and obtain the exact solutions that would lead to them. In the present paper we show how the exact solutions can be obtained from the asymptotic solutions and conversely, through the use of a refined Radon transform, which we introduced in a previous paper. We have thus obtained a way of obtaining the exact three-dimensional solutions from the essentially one-dimensional solutions of the asymptotic form entirely in terms of transforms. This is an alternative way to obtaining exact solutions in terms of initial values through the use of Riemann functions. The exact solutions that we obtain through the use of the Radon transform are
causal
and therefore physical solutions. That is, these solutions for time
t
> 0 could have been obtained from the initial value problem by prescribing the solution and its time-derivative, in the acoustic case, and the electric and magnetic fields, in the case of Maxwell’s equations, at time
t
= 0. The role of time in the relation between the exact solutions and in the asymptotic solutions is made very explicit in the present paper.
On the Use of Asymptotic Solutions to Plane Ice—Water Problems