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Re: A statement on what is wrong with standard calculus
Posted:
Feb 22, 1996 10:02 PM
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At 1:05 PM 1/31/22 +0000, nstahl@uwcmail.uwc.edu wrote:
For instance, we don't know that someone who doesn't
> know much algebra can learn much science.
>
Poincare and Einstein were very poor at algebra.
And Archimedes didn't know any.
And somecontemporary views:
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute mathematics professor William Boyce and
co-author of the respected standard DiffEq textbook "Elementary
Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems (Wiley,1986) says this:
" A decrease in time spent on symbol manipulation by hand should provide an
opportunity for more emphasis on conceptual understanding . . . Details of
mathematical procedures and algorithms are rapidly forgotten unless they
are used frequently, but underlying concepts and ideas become a part of an
individual's mindset and are always available - or at least much less
likely to be lost than manipulative skills."
Stanford University electrical engineering professor Steve Boyd puts it
this way:
"I can't say too strongly how unimportant symbolic manipulation is in
engineering."
Stanford University electrical engineering professor and National Academy
of Engineering member, Tony Siegman says this:
" My current view would be: If Mathematica knows how to solve it
analytically, then I don't neeed to know how. Mathematica knows about
everything there is to know and if it doesn't know how to solve it
analytically, hell, it'll just solve it numerically. "
-Jerry Uhl
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Jerry Uhl juhl@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Professor of Mathematics 1409 West Green Street
University of Illinois Urbana,Illinois 61801
Calculus&Mathematica Development Team
http://www-cm.math.uiuc.edu
"It is unworthy of excellent persons to lose hours like slaves in the labor
of calculation."
. . . Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
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