Older editions of Thomas' Calculus had a really neat appendix called "Lies that your Computer and Calculator Told You", and it had a bunch of examples showing how to break, confuse or at least horribly slow down a lot of computational methods for some mathematical problems.

The point? Computers can never 'replace' math. They make things easier, but aren't a do-all end-all solution.

For example, try to use a TI-85 to find the derivative of the absolute value of x at x=0. The calculator tells you the answer is 0, when really it is undefined.

Sadly, that appendix seems to have disappeared from the newest edition (I could be wrong there).

In reply to Re: (2) What??? You wanna learn math? by Cirollo
in thread What??? You wanna learn math? by elusion

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