NEW USES OF THE ABSTRACT—BOEHM 325 
Whole new fields of mathematics are needed to cope with problems in 
other sciences and human affairs. ‘Transportation engineers, for ex- 
ample, still lack a mathematical method to analyze the turbulence of 
4-lane highway traffic; and it may be years before they can apply pre- 
cise mathematical reasoning to 3-dimensional air traffic. Biologists 
have used almost no mathematics aside from statistics, but now some of 
them are seriously thinking of applying topology. This branch of 
mathematics, which deals with generalized shapes and disregards size, 
may be the most appropriate way to describe living cells with their 
enormous variations in size and shape. Neurophysiologists are look- 
ing for a new kind of algebra to represent thinking processes, which 
are by nomeans random, yet not entirely methodical. 
There are still some remarkably simple questions that are teasing 
mathematicians. They have not yet found, for example, a general 
solution to the following problem: Given a road map of MV folds, how 
many ways can you refold it? And when this is solved, there will be 
another puzzle, and another. 
Reprints of the various articles in this Report may be obtained, 
as long as the supply lasis, on request addressed to the Editorial 
and Publications Division, Smithsonian Institution, Washington 
29, D.C. 
