>the most compelling part of the talk was his interpretation of the purpose for doing math
Exactly. Except that he misinterprets that very purpose. He assumes the purpose is entirely utilitarian. He implicitly says math should be about solving common real-world problems, like his concocted life-insurance premium minimization, which helps the common student make life decisions (as if!). While 100% of pure math folks would actively disagree with him, even 99% of applied math folk would have a tough time agreeing with his utilitarian mindset. We simply don't do math to just pay the bills. People were trisecting angles and squaring the circle and computing surds for over thousands of years with no utilitarian aspect whatsoever. He also says math problems must be rephrased as CS programming problems!!! I'm all for algebraic computing tools, and Mathematica is a rather neat addition to that category, but aside from that, the rest of his talk is beyond hyperbolic.
Koblitz makes the case against computing here:
http://www.math.washington.edu/~koblitz/mi.html
But there's a very wide literature on why math & computers don't mix in the classroom - read Dr. Jeffery King on the art of math (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mathematics-Jerry-P-King/dp/030644... ) - there's whole chapters in that book devoted to debunking what Conrad is talking about.
Exactly. Except that he misinterprets that very purpose. He assumes the purpose is entirely utilitarian. He implicitly says math should be about solving common real-world problems, like his concocted life-insurance premium minimization, which helps the common student make life decisions (as if!). While 100% of pure math folks would actively disagree with him, even 99% of applied math folk would have a tough time agreeing with his utilitarian mindset. We simply don't do math to just pay the bills. People were trisecting angles and squaring the circle and computing surds for over thousands of years with no utilitarian aspect whatsoever. He also says math problems must be rephrased as CS programming problems!!! I'm all for algebraic computing tools, and Mathematica is a rather neat addition to that category, but aside from that, the rest of his talk is beyond hyperbolic. Koblitz makes the case against computing here: http://www.math.washington.edu/~koblitz/mi.html But there's a very wide literature on why math & computers don't mix in the classroom - read Dr. Jeffery King on the art of math (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mathematics-Jerry-P-King/dp/030644... ) - there's whole chapters in that book devoted to debunking what Conrad is talking about.