Re: something i found interesting...

On Fri, 1 Sep 2000, Jonathan Chang wrote:

> In a message dated 2000:09:01 4:26:35 PM, Cprincessw@AOL.COM writes:
>
>     As to math being international, in different cultures there are differing
> approaches to counting, i.e. base-10 (decimal) , base-2 (binary), etc ad
> infinitum...
Definitely agreed.  The way everyday people do math is quite different
from the way mathematicians at Cornell U. (and probably at other similar
institutions) do math.  Heck, mathematicians, physicists and computer
scientists often use different notation for the same thing, or
conceptualize them differently.  As a math major I find some common
physics notation horribly imprecise, but for the physic majors' needs,
math notation is too cumbersome, and so on.

The joke I've heard (from a CS professor) is that mathematicians take
logarithms in base e, engineers in base 10 <shudder>, and computer
scientists in base 2.

And that's not even going to the differences between how "ordinary
people" (as opposed to crazy people like math majors!) conceptualize
things like number and quantity, let alone proof.  Some of my friends
*cringe* when I describe what little I've heard of the Zermelo-Fraenkel
axioms....(I hope I spelled that right.)

YHL