June 25th, 2009, 05:56 AM
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 | Flow Master | | Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Zeitgeist
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VonNemo19  Well, in the real world, productivity is key. Especially in the US. Being elegant and such is something to be done in your spare time. The classroom, however, should focus ALL of it's time and energy developing the next generation of problem solvers that can produce results; that can solve the CONTEMPORARY and RELEVANT problems facing humanity RIGHT NOW. If they can do it in an elegant way, cool, but I highly doubt that it would matter at all whether a mathematical model that depicts the way in which humans could reduce levels of greenhouse gases by one half in ten years was elegant.
I'm not bashing your statement. I love math. In my opinion, math is beauty. But im trying to keep the focus of the post. | There was a time, not that long ago, when the study of prime numbers was seen as pretty useless from a commercial application and benefit point of view ....
(The British mathematician G. H. Hardy ( http://www.robertnowlan.com/pdfs/Har...y%20Harold.pdf) remarked:
" Nothing I have ever done is of the slightest practical use." "No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world."
Of interest: prime numbers | How the Queen of Sciences is put to work )
__________________ There are two things you should never try to prove: the impossible and the obvious. The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark. (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
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