Mathematics in industrial problems. Part 1 (Q1801219)

It is well-known that in many fields of application of Mathematics progress is dependent to a considerable extent on the connections between theoretical mathematicians, mathematicians working in applications and scientists and engineers applying mathematical models and methods. The book under review serves for this purpose. Reading the book forces to recollect the ``tale of the Times of Old'' when Mathematics drew the inspiration in applied problems. The author is the well-known mathematician and the director of the Institute for Mathematics and its Application (IMA), whose aim which was proclaimed is to ``build a bridge between mathematicians and industry''. The book is a very good and a valuable survey of modern problems which arise not only in Industry in literal sense but in Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science. It is based on twenty-two reports which were presented in IMA seminars in the academic year 1987-1988 and on the questions raised in that seminars and subsequent discussions. The majority of the problems is related to differential equations in one form or another in such fields as semiconductor fabrication, device modelling, fluid dynamics, etching and crystal precipitation. Other chapters are devoted to some problems from probability, computer science and graph theory. It is worth to note that some chapters include lists of unresolved problems and issues and each of them is provided with valuable bibliography. This book could be recommended to those young mathematicians who wish to try their forces in new and interesting problems raised by applied sciences and to the representatives of Engineering, Physics, Chemistry and some others as a guide for obtaining the clean and accurate idea of the character of mathematical problems which arise in their own branches of knowledge and in some cases of their solutions.