From andrzej@tuins.tuins.ac.jp Sun Jan 24 18:58:38 1999 Return-Path: Received: from soda3.bekkoame.ne.jp (soda3.bekkoame.ne.jp [202.231.192.83]) by nss4.cc.Lehigh.EDU (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA21488 for ; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 18:58:37 -0500 Received: from [202.210.131.212] (yhma0215.bekkoame.ne.jp [202.210.131.215]) by soda3.bekkoame.ne.jp (8.9.2/3.7W) with SMTP id IAA12160 for ; Mon, 25 Jan 1999 08:57:20 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <199901241718.MAA56818@ns3-1.CC.Lehigh.EDU> X-Mailer: CTM PowerMail 2.3.1 x-sender: andrzej@tuins.tuins.ac.jp Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 08:58:04 +0900 To: DON DAVIS From: Andrzej Kozlowski Subject: Re: Kuperberg and Stasheff Message-Id: <19990125085804.006574@smtp.bekkoame.or.jp> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Sun, Jan 24, 1999, DON DAVIS wrote: >> Anyway, I am convinced that computer or information science is now >> becoming a deadly threat to mathematics. > >Undoubtedly there are some pedants at Oxford who see the United >States as a grave threat to the English language. But is >their opinion useful? > I think you misunderstood my point. I meant to say that we have allowed the situation to be created in almost any mathematics which gets good publicity (and money) is described as computer science, and anything that is arcane and useless is mathematics. Nobody seeems to complain. Some of the oldest areas of mathematics, like logic and number theory are now officially computer science. Mathematicians should try to remind people that "mathematical computer science" is mathematics. Andrzej