• Home
• About Us
• People
• Undergraduate Program
• Undergraduate Research OPPORTUNITIES IN Applied Mathematics and Biology
• Graduate Program
• Graduate Handbook
• Graduate Brochure
• Doctoral and Masters Program and Information for Applicants
  
• Origin of the Division of Applied Mathematics
• Graduate Program Research Areas
• Research Centers
• Library and Computer Facilities
• Faculty
• Courses
• Courses
• Research Centers and Groups
• Room Reservations/calendar
• Computing Information

Graduate Program

ORIGIN OF THE DIVISION OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS

The Division had its origin in a program of Advanced Instruction and Research in Mechanics, established in the summer of 1941 on the recommendation of a committee of the National Research Council. The Council was concerned with the lack of applied mathematicians in the country and its effect on the war effort. R. G. D. Richardson, Dean of the Graduate School and Secretary of the American Mathematical Society, succeeded in having the program established at Brown, partly due to the eminence of its Mathematics Department. A large part of the European scientific community had left Europe by then, and the time was ripe for establishing a substantial program in the United States. Dean Richardson arranged for the noted German applied mathematician William Prager to come to Brown to lead the program. About 30 students attended in the first year, 1941, and enrollment rose to about 120 one year later. The roster of visiting faculty during the war years reads like a Who’s Who of American mathematical science of that time. On the recommendation of a committee appointed by Brown’s President Henry M. Wriston, and including Theodore von Karman, Marston Morse and Warren Weaver, the very successful program became the Graduate Division of Applied Mathematics in 1946, and a formal Ph.D. program was established. Undergraduate programs leading to the Sc.B. and to the A.B. were added in the 1950s.

The early program in applied mathematics focused on solid and fluid mechanics, electromagnetic theory, mathematical methods in applied physics, numerical analysis and probability theory—the principal interests of the faculty for many years. Since that time, the interests of the faculty have been extended as the Division has maintained a leading role in the development of applied mathematics. In 1964, for example, the Center for Dynamical Systems was established to coordinate the research of a large group of people working in ordinary and partial differential equations and their applications. More recently, strong programs of research in scientific computing and in applied probability and statistics have been established.

Updated: July 2006