When We Talk Mathematics, We May Be

Computers Are Like Humans - They Do Everything Except Think.

I Am A Little Troubled About The Tea Service In The Electronic Computer Building. Apparently The Members Of Your Staff Consume Several Times As Much Supplies As The Same Number Of People Do In Fuld Hall And They Have Been Especially Unfair In The Matter Of Sugar.... I Should Like To Raise The Question Whether It Would Not Be Better For The Computer People To Come Up To Fuld Hall At The End Of The Day At 5 O'clock And Have Their Tea Here Under Proper Supervision.

It Is Exceptional That One Should Be Able To Acquire The Understanding Of A Process Without Having Previously Acquired A Deep Familiarity With Running It, With Using It, Before One Has Assimilated It In An Instinctive And Empirical Way... Thus Any Discussion Of The Nature Of Intellectual Effort In Any Field Is Difficult, Unless It Presupposes An Easy, Routine Familiarity With That Field. In Mathematics This Limitation Becomes Very Severe.

The Emphasis On Mathematical Methods Seems To Be Shifted More Towards Combinatorics And Set Theory - And Away From The Algorithm Of Differential Equations Which Dominates Mathematical Physics.

Problems Are Often Stated In Vague Terms... Because It Is Quite Uncertain What The Problems Really Are.