Abstract
THERE is an amazing difference of opinion concerning the importance of topology. Some claim that it is a new type of mathematical thinking, which goes to the heart of qualitative spacial relations, makes complicated analysis intuitively simple, throws light on differential and functional equations, opens a new era in dynamics, and is applicable to problems of electric circuits and of the constitution of chemical compounds. Yet others regard it as a highly specialized subject which can be safely ignored even by geometers, and point out that topologists have not yet solved the apparently elementary four-colour map problem which has been discussed for more than a century.
Lectures in Topology
The University of Michigan Conference of 1940. Edited by Raymond L. Wilder William L. Ayres. Pp. vii + 316. (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1941.) 3 dollars.
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PIAGGIO, H. Lectures in Topology. Nature 149, 396–397 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/149396b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/149396b0
