In celebration of Princeton University's 250th anniversary, the mathematics department held a conference entitled "Prospects in Mathematics". The purpose of the conference was to speculate on future directions of research in mathematics.

This collection of articles provides a rich panorama of current mathematical activity in many research areas. From Gromov's lecture on quantitative differential topology to Witten's discussion of string theory, new ideas and techniques transfixed the audience of international mathematicians. The volume contains 11 articles by leading mathematicians, including historical presentations by J. Milnor and D. Spencer. It provides a guide to some of the most significant mathematical work of the past decade.

Readership

Graduate students, research mathematicians and physicists.

Table of Contents

• J. Milnor -- Growing up in the Old Fine Hall
• D. Spencer -- Old memories and an old problem
• J. Fröhlich -- The electron is inexhaustible
• M. Gromov -- Quantitative homotopy theory
• H. Iwaniec -- Harmonic analysis in number theory
• D. McDuff -- Symplectic topology and capacities
• M. Struwe -- Evolution problems in geometry and mathematical physics
• E. Witten -- Small instantons in string theory
• T. Wolff -- Recent work connected with the Kakeya problem