Rapid advances in the physical and biological sciences and in related technologies have brought about equally farreaching changes in mathematical research. Focusing on control theory, invariant imbedding, dynamic programming, and quasilinearization, Mr. Bellman explores with ease and clarity the mathematical research problems arising from scientific questions in engineering, physics, biology, and medicine. Special attention is paid in these essays to the use of the digital computer in obtaining the numerical solution of numerical problems, its influence in the formulation of new and old scientific problems in new terms, and to some of the effects of the computer revolution on educational and social systems. The new opportunities for mathematical research presage, Bellman concludes, a renaissance of mathematics in human affairs by involving it closely in the problems of society.
