> > I believe there is an emerging discipline of computational > > mathematics which requires both a deep mathematical background > > and a deep programming background. Sage could make the claim > > that it is a good basis for an interdisciplinary degree or > > even a separate department that provides an equal focus on > > both subjects. If Sage, with both its mathematical and > > algorithmic focus, was brought forward to the NSF as a > > broad-curriculum basis I believe it could be funded as such. > > I think you are right. Here's a "little lemma" that points in that direction: > > > http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1020687&WT.z_pims_id=5741 > > and > > http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbuzzard.ups.edu%2Fprivate%2Fnsf-ccli-proposal.pdf&ei=Yh1GTfiTN4n0tgP5pfWOCg&usg=AFQjCNFXFihZ_7BhSIDN2-yH9iUFbm3HDA >
This is very interesting but does not differ a lot from the Mathematica approach. While I was at City College in New York I saw Mathematica used in many of the ways you are describing, including the inclusion of textbooks with examples, the MMA website, and in-class examples that are dynamic. One suggestion is to expand the proposal into areas that MMA cannot cover. Everything you've suggested seems to apply to courses in or near the math department. It might be useful to expand the proposal to include the cross-discipline work from the computer science point of view. More work needs to be done to talk about algorithms, their development, their efficiency, and ways that algorithms can be embedded in a mathematical type hierarchy. Textbooks that are oriented toward teaching mathematical algorithms in computer science courses would be valuable. I had a lot of this in my background because there was no such discipline as computer science; the courses were all taught by mathematicians. So, naturally, we learned how to program using gauss-seidel, method of false position, newton-raphson iterations, and other strictly mathematical algorithms. All we had was Fortran and Lisp. They no longer teach such mathematical algorithms in "computer science". I think that Sage could reach out to the computer science departments and introduce core Sage algorithms as a good basis for teaching. Optimally, there would be a separate department and degree for computational mathematics. The subject is deep, wide, vital, and would clearly represent a separate discipline. CompSci does not care about the algebraic issues and Math does not care about the language and embedding issues. I would expect the NSF to fund this as it sits squarely in the center of their mandate. In any case, this Sage effort you suggested above has my endorsement, for whatever that's worth. Tim Daly -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
