Introduction

Abstract

In differential calculus one encounters immediately the unpleasant fact that not every function is differentiable. The purpose of distribution theory is to remedy this flaw; indeed, the space of distributions is essentially the smallest extension of the space of continuous functions where differentiation is always well defined. Perhaps it is therefore self evident that it is desirable to make such an extension, but let us anyway discuss some examples of how awkward it is not to be allowed to differentiate.