> In theory, I strongly support "math for liberal arts"-type classes instead in college. I love it. They could call it "math"! ;) Seriously, I think that capt

> In theory, I strongly support "math for liberal arts"-type classes instead in college. I love it. They could call it "math"! ;) Seriously, I think that captures an important concept: for the most part, math was developed to serve the needs of humanity. I used to wonder, how do we know our numbers are the "true" numbers? Did we just happen upon one way of computing, and there are countless alternatives that could have been explored? Of course, the answer to that is actually "kinda, yeah". Abstract algebra leads to all sorts of systems that behave more or less like our familiar numbers and operations. And besides the whole numbers, which represent physical quantities, every extension to things like integers, reals and complex numbers are used not because of their tangible reality, but because they do a good job of modeling human concerns. Because my brain has a limited ability to pursue abstraction for its own sake, its this aspect of math that really captivates me. I think that's true for most people.