[aNYCguy]

Quark: There's where you're wrong. Did a mathematician build the computer you're working on?

AmishDude:Actually, yes. Boole. Or should the credit go to the kid at Dell who put it together?

I think it's time for you to calm down, wrestle control of your brain away from your inferiority complex, and stop making these bizarre and grandiose claims.

For you to suggest that Boole was unilaterally responsible for the creation of computers is to suggest that once he had produced a lot of useful results demonstrating the feasibility of the concept, they popped into existence.

Really, there's no need to be so bitter. I've never heard anyone deny that math is an indispensable tool. The entire field wouldn't make a whit of difference to those outside it, however, without scientists, i.e. those people with an interest in the real world.

[AmishDude]

I've never heard anyone deny that math is an indispensable tool.

It's not just a tool. It's a point of view. It's the difference between life in the clouds and life in the dirt.

The real world applications is fine, but it's also easy. And narrow.

A biologist knows nothing, NOTHING about physics or chemistry or even many other areas of biology. For me, it's all the same. Optimization is optimization. Vectors are vectors. It's like Stephen Breyer, who can't figure out how that old Constitution applies to the modern world. That's exactly the mentality I've been fighting on this thread. You've got to see the big picture and applied scientists refuse to.