So what is it good for?

You know you’ve been asked “what’s math research good for?”  I’m talking about at that party that wasn’t full of other math grad students.  You know, right after, “you do new mathematics?  I thought it was all finished!”

I’ve made a stab at writing an answer to this for the general public, and I’d love input from other mathematicians.  Do you think I’m right?  So what is it good for?

This entry was posted on August 11, 2007 at 3:35 pm and is filed under general audience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “So what is it good for?”

  1. Grétar Amazeen Says:
    August 13, 2007 at 7:52 pm

    You should watch this video

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=BsIJN4YMZZo

    On a completely different note, what applications do you use to typeset LaTex?

  2. ulfarsson Says:
    August 13, 2007 at 10:14 pm

    I use TeXShop. Have used that ever since it came out and it is actively developed and always improving.

  3. The Importance of Mathematics « Trans-Siberian Says:
    August 14, 2007 at 12:25 am

    [...] a much more eloquent explanation of why mathematics is a useful subject than my own post “So what is it good for?” and answers the question with some real examples of the process I was referring to. [...]

  4. katestange Says:
    August 14, 2007 at 12:28 am

    Thanks for the video! I posted the link on my blog, as I was quite taken with it.

    As for LaTeX, I use TeXnicCenter (which I can never spell correctly, for a wide variety of reasons) with MikTex, and I find it a quite serviceable setup for Windows.

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