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I don't know of a single US research university that doesn't have a math department.
by pmiller2 6y ago
I don't know of a single US research university that doesn't have a math department.
- redis_mlc 6y agoPure math departments are important for identifying the outlier students who are capable of contributing to the field. An entire department might only find one star per year (or decade), but that could advance a topic 100 years overall. Occasionally a self-taught prodigy like Ramanajuan emerges, but society needs many more.
- redis_mlc 6y agoThe article is about pure math, which is the foundation of mathematics using sets, topology, etc. It has separate classes, textbooks and professors from applied mathematics, and often a very low courseload because of the difficulty (like 24 hours per week.) From a simplistic standpoint, pure math is not focused on equations or numeric solutions, unlike applied mathematics. (You don't need a calculator for most pure math classes.)