A reader passed on this column from some West Coast rag.

The writer has a point, though I am not clear what it has to do with

postmodernism. The easy availability of desktop computing power is changing

math quite radically. We are heading back in a more practical,

computational direction. As a keen computer myself I welcome this. It’s a whole change of mood, though. Back in

the 1960s, when I was studying math at university, the conventional wisdom

was that Western math was starting to fall behind Soviet math because we had

access to computers (lumbering great mainframes in those days, of course),

while they didn’t, so they had to use their brains more. In fact it didn’t

work out that way at all.

I’m not sure where this revolution will take us, but it’ll be a relief from

the 20th-century trend of seeking ever higher levels of generalization and

abstraction. I don’t say that trend has been fruitless; but it’s been

awfully wearing on those of us who love NUMBERS…