ABSTRACT
It often happens that some mathematics is invented long before it gets “applied.” For example, not long after the time of Newton the basic mathematical physics needed to send a rocket to the moon already existed. It was not until much later, of course, that a rocket did, in fact, land on the moon. What was needed (besides rockets!) was fast and vast computational power—provided by electronic computers. If you have ever had an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), basic mathematics (the Radon Transform and Inverse Radon Transform) was employed to create the image from the data collected; and you need a computer to do the calculations necessary to create the image. In both these cases, the basic equations and functions used had been known for a long time. However, solving these equations or evaluating these functions involve computations that cannot practically be done by hand.
