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Mathematics is a Profession

In: Current and Future Directions in Applied Mathematics

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  • Christopher I. Byrnes

    (Washington University, School of Engineering and Applied Science)

Abstract

It makes little sense to discuss future directions in applied mathematics without emphasizing similar opportunities and challenges in mathematics as a whole. A few decades ago, someone who should have known better wrote an article entitled “Applied mathematics is bad mathematics.” Nowadays, clearer thinking sometimes prevails. On one hand, it is clear that applied mathematicians have to be very good mathematicians. The reason for this is simple; applied mathematics tends to be interdisciplinary and one can’t do great interdisciplinary research without having core competency in a discipline in the first place. On the other hand, with the end of the Cold Wax and the evaporation of the longstanding rationale for national support of research, a grander debate between the relative merits of basic and applied research has subsumed any serious discussion about pure versus applied mathematics. Finally, the world is changing and mathematics, as one of the ways humans describe the world, will change as well. Henceforth, I won’t distinguish between pure and applied mathematics.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher I. Byrnes, 1997. "Mathematics is a Profession," Springer Books, in: Mark Alber & Bei Hu & Joachim Rosenthal (ed.), Current and Future Directions in Applied Mathematics, pages 4-8, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-1-4612-2012-1_2
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4612-2012-1_2
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