[cmath] Re: [Cmesg-l] Fwd: Good article for promoting pure math research

[barbeau at math.toronto.edu]

>
>
> Peter,
>
> thank you very much for this
>
> Some of the stories/case studies I know about, and always talk about them
> to my students. Now I know more stories!
>
> Important message -- for students, as well as for teachers, math
> curriculum people, etc. -- is that not every piece of math
> needs to be (or can be) justified by some (present-day, "real life")
> application.
>
> There is huge value in learning about (and researching) areas of math that
> seem to be "purely abstract/theoretical" or "non applicable."
>
> Cheers
> Miroslav
>
Indeed. Some of the best mathematics, in terms of students learning what
we would really like them to know about the subject and how to approach
it, comes through recreations and nice problems. It is this aspect that
impelled a lot of Eastern European success in mathematics before the
decline of Communism. Peter, do you remember the rotating table problem
(from Russia circa 1980)? I also remember your doing a workshop on the
number of ways of building a train with cars of two separate lengths. Ed
Barbeau