> take the average Joe so much beyond what even Gauss, Newtown, Grothendieck or Archimedes had at their disposal
I think this comment really sums up very well what is at the core of our discussion: the future of mathematics and science.
My strong belief is that thousands of years from now, Archimedes and Gauss will still be remembered, and everything we think is great now will be forgotten while they are not. That tells me that they were much farther ahead of their times than us, even though they didn't have modern computers.
Mathematicians and computer scientists both have it totally backwards imo. On the one hand, mathematicians think they have something to teach us about computer science, but they refuse to use technology properly. On the other hand, when we write code, it's all governed by mathematical laws and there are many questions (but maybe not you know, coding standards or the philosophy of writing good code) we could really use the guiding hand of mathematicians with, and they need to catch up with the times and we programmers need to accept they have something valuable to offer and to teach us.
I think this comment really sums up very well what is at the core of our discussion: the future of mathematics and science.
My strong belief is that thousands of years from now, Archimedes and Gauss will still be remembered, and everything we think is great now will be forgotten while they are not. That tells me that they were much farther ahead of their times than us, even though they didn't have modern computers.
Mathematicians and computer scientists both have it totally backwards imo. On the one hand, mathematicians think they have something to teach us about computer science, but they refuse to use technology properly. On the other hand, when we write code, it's all governed by mathematical laws and there are many questions (but maybe not you know, coding standards or the philosophy of writing good code) we could really use the guiding hand of mathematicians with, and they need to catch up with the times and we programmers need to accept they have something valuable to offer and to teach us.