Math becomes fashionable, focus shifts

Mathematician Stanley J. Osher, whose firms Cognitech Inc., Luminescent Inc., and Level Set Systems Inc. are all solving real world problems, says it’s an “incredible time for mathematicians”

“The whole industry of graphics in movies is using these algorithms,” says Osher, director of applied mathematics at the University of California in Los Angeles. Titanic was the last movie to use old-fashioned technology of simplified physical models. The special effects of the recent 3D movie Avatar owe their brilliance to level-set algorithms, he adds.