Book excerpt: The Kernel Function and Conformal Mapping by Stefan Bergman is a revised edition of ""The Kernel Function"". The author has made extensive changes in the original volume. The present book will be of interest not only to mathematicians, but also to engineers, physicists, and computer scientists. The applications of orthogonal functions in solving boundary value problems and conformal mappings onto canonical domains are discussed; and publications are indicated where programs for carrying out numerical work using high-speed computers can be found.The unification of methods in the theory of functions of one and several complex variables is one of the purposes of introducing the kernel function and the domains with a distinguished boundary. This approach has been extensively developed during the last two decades. This second edition of Professor Bergman's book reviews this branch of the theory including recent developments not dealt with in the first edition. The presentation of the topics is simple and presupposes only knowledge of an elementary course in the theory of analytic functions of one variable.