Mathematics in Industrial Research

HE for mathematics in industry was recognized at three ago when Bacon said: "For many Tleast necessitycenturies invented [discovered] with sufficient parts of nature can neither be sub- tility nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity nor accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity without the aid and intervening of mathematics." Since Bacon's time only a very small part of nature has been "accommodated unto use," yet even this has given us such widely useful devices as the heat engine, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, the airplane and electric power transmission. It is impossible to conceive that any of these devices could have been developed without "the aid and intervening of mathematics." Present day industry is indeed compelled, in its persistent endeavors to meet recognized commercial needs, to make use of mathematics in all of the three ways pointed out by Bacon. The record of industrial research abundantly confirms his assertion that sufficient subtility in discovery, sufficient perspicuity in demonstration, and sufficient dexterity in use can be achieved only with the aid of mathematics. There is throughout industry one vitally important common characteristic,--uncertainty. In one industry the uncertainty may be due to the supply of raw material, the supply of labor, the supply of brains or the supply of capital. In another industry the uncertainty may be due to the activity of competitors, to fluctuating public demand or to the passage and subsequent interpretations of statutory laws.