The 2001 Alan Tayler Lecture was delivered by Prof Julian Hunt CB FIMA FRS of University College London.

Maths in industry: past experiences and new challenges

Abstract

My experiences as an applied mathematician/engineer began with the varied problems of the electrical power industry of the 1960s and 1970s as it exploited (largely successfully, but not without some well publicised and educational disasters) new technologies (nuclear, magnetohydrodynamics, much larger generators and cooling towers), new external factors controlling industry (especially environmental, but also safety) and new mathematical and scientific techniques (computers, numerical methods, controls, materials, etc.). Since then many of the same themes have continued to influence how mathematics is applied in the solution of industrial problems, as I saw when working as a consultant, mainly on fluid mechanical problems, to the nuclear, oil, metallurgical and environmental industries. Probably the greatest change/challenge is the need for new technology to be introduced economically, predictably and more quickly than the competition, so that the right technology, and scientific methods must be chosen (e.g. deterministic or statistical methods), the software systems need to be planned with excellent logic, and in mathematical modelling the algorithms must be as efficient as possible. Standard computer packages help but certainly do not remove the need to use the most powerful conceptual, analytical and modelling methods as effectively as possible, particularly in identifying elements of processes that are independent and dependent on each other, and distinguishing between those which can be greatly simplified (or parameterised) and those which need explicit computation. The answers keep changing as computing and numerical methods keep improving, and the length/time scales of computation are reduced.