The physical and economic world in which the modern engineer operates continues to grow more complex, putting ever greater demands on the mathematical models representing that world. During the five years since University Extension last offered a lecture series in “Modern Mathematics for the Engineer,” reliance on a variety of these models has grown in an amazing fashion, due in no small measure to the adaptation of advanced mathematical techniques for use in connection with high-speed computing machines. Hilbert-space methods, always meaningful to the mathematicians who developed them, have now become useful also to the engineer and applied scientist, and the acceptance of probabilistic as well as deterministic analyses has become commonplace.
The present series was conceived with the objective of presenting some exciting aspects of modern mathematics. The course was designed for nonspecialists with training in engineering or science, high-school and college teachers of mathematics, and others desiring to remain au courant concerning mathematical developments. The material is intended to be quite understandable in the large, although not necessarily in complete detail, on the basis of the single lectures, and all of it should be applicable either now or in the reasonably near future to science and engineering.
We are pleased to share the stimulating experience of the second “Modern Mathematics for the Engineer” lecture series with you, the reader, through the pages of this book.
PAUL H. SHEATS
Professor of Education
Dean, University Extension
University of California
L. M. K. BOELTER
Professor of Engineering
Dean, College of Engineering
University of California
Los Angeles
MORROUGH P. O’BRIEN
Professor of Engineering
Dean, College of Engineering
University of California
Berkeley