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From: eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene Miya N.)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Teaching Math in the Late Twentieth Century
Message-ID: <1766@ames.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jun-87 12:51:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1766
Posted: Mon Jun 15 12:51:43 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jun-87 01:53:16 EDT
References: <3797@udenva.UUCP> <315@cos.COM>
Sender: usenet@ames.UUCP
Reply-To: eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene Miya N.)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 67
Keywords: What?

In article <315@cos.COM> howard@COS.COM (Howard C. Berkowitz) writes:
>Graph theory is intensely useful to computer science practitioners involved
>with data bases and communications; it is less relevant to mathematicians.

I beg you pardon!  Less relevant?

>I hope we can learn from the physicists and others and recognize the need
>for mathematical tool courses (e.g., differential equations for physics)
>as distinct from mathematical theory courses.  It may be that there fewer
>pure mathematics programs can be justified, if the fewer programs can be
>of higher quality.

In a university, no one appears completely satisifed.  I have a friend
who teaches the graduate math methods for physicists class in Santa
Barbara (A great place to winter for physicists).  The physics
department teaches that class because similar math classes (and ME
classes don't have the `proper' slant).  I also counted 6 intro to
programming classes in different departments: CS, Math, Engineering,
sociology, psychology, and music.  Similarly the engineering departments
were looking for technical writing classes in English.  English dept.:
"Say what?"

>Yes, I think it is cruel, if the math they are taught is not the math
>they will use.  "Scientific programmers," as I believe you see
>them, are increasingly a minority, as better software and personal computers
>are available to more computer-literate scientists.  My experience is that
>the more sophisticated numerical algorithms are more apt to be written
>by physical scientists and engineers than "scientific programmers."

I beg to differ again.  I offer LINPACK and Jack Dongarra (a computer
scientist more than a programmer whose work is widely distributed (May
1987, CACM) as a counter example.  Many scientists (more concern with
their research) will end up reinventing principals of software
engineering (if they are smart enough, otherwise they will just create
tomorrow's dusty decks).

>My flame here on "the math they will use" concerns what I feel is an
>emphasis on analysis and theoretical abstract algebra, as opposed to
>useful discrete mathematics, statistics, and operations research.  I hae
>spent about 20 years in mostly state-of-the-art operating systems,
>networks, and online applications.  I have found it necessary to study
>more discrete math (graph theory, groups, number theory as applied to 
>coding, etc.) and statistics/OR, and have rarely needed calculus or
>differential equations (even with appreciable hardware work!)
>Howard

The problem, Howard, is that people divide the world up into their
discipline and `service' disciplines.  The physicists rely on mechnical
engineers to build things for them, but other MEs (in Universities)
do various kinds research, but the physicists don't make that
distinction.  The same goes for math and computing science.  Calculus
will come back.  Your perceptions are largely the part of they type of
computing you do, the languages, and so forth.  I thought about trying
to convince one friend to start off his students with a symbol
manipulation package like Macsyma, but so many students come to school
knowing BASIC this is a major problem (Note a recent issue of
Engineering and Science from Caltech Featured an article about using
BASIC to teach physics students at Caltech! an abomination!).

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix,menlo70}!ames!aurora!eugene