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"Prolonged contact with the computer turns mathematicians into clerks and vice versa." -Perlis
by balamatom 1y ago
"Prolonged contact with the computer turns mathematicians into clerks and vice versa." -Perlis
- jebarker 1y agoWhat does vice versa mean here? Clerks are turned into mathematicians by using a computer?
- defgeneric 1y agoA clerk who once used a physical filing system but now uses a computer may naturally begin to bring the filing system to a higher level of abstraction. Think filing clerk -> database administrator -> relational algebra... E.g. there would be enormous difficulty in replacing the Dewey Decimal System with something else, if only due to its physical inertia, but with a computer system a curious clerk can invent an alternative categorization and retrieval system which inevitably touches on mathematical topics.