A note on reflection of spherical waves

In 1909 Sommerfeld gave an exact solution for the reflection of a spherical wave from a plane surface in terms of an oscillatory integral and also presented an asymptotic solution for the case where both source and receiver are at the boundary. Weyl (1919) presented an alternative solution and also an asymptotic solution for the case where the source is at the boundary. It is known that the general case is solved if a general solution for the case where the source is at the boundary is known. Here it is demonstrated that it is sufficient to have the general solution for the case where both source and receiver are at the boundary. This is mainly of theoretical interest, but may have practical applications. As an example it is demonstrated that Sommerfeld's approximate solution gives Ingard's (1951) approximate solution which is valid for arbitrary source and receiver heights. (c) 2005 Acoustical Society of America.