MATHEMATICS THE QUEEN OF SCIENCESContents
Part 1. Scientific matters Unit 1. Mathematics – handyman for all sciences
Discussion Answer the following questions:
1) They say “Mathematics is handyman for all sciences”. Do you agree? 2) Name some basic operations for mathematics. How often do you use them in your everyday life/ your studies/ your professional activity? 3) Do you consider it important to be able to conduct mathematical operations in English? Why?
Reading MATHEMATICS THE QUEEN OF SCIENCES Karl Friedrich Gauss, the famous 18th century mathematician, once called mathematics the queen of sciences. Mathematics is a handyman working for all sciences. Today economists, linguists and psychologists resort to its services. Mathematics does its job so well that other sciences depend to some extend on this handyman. Mathematics follows the changes taking place in various fields of knowledge and in this connection sets itself definite targets. At the same time, scientists in other spheres must closely follow the progress made in mathematics since it is impossible to keep abreast of latest developments in, say, physics without making use of mathematics. The recent sensational achievements in biology-genetics, in particular, are closely linked with progress in mathematics. It would be impossible to decipher the genetic code, the code of heredity had we not had such terms as coding, transmission of information and so on. Mathematics today is often occupied with "strange” things. One of the leading mathematicians in the world, Andrei Kolmogorov, is making a thorough study of matters pertaining to higher nervous activity and to poetry. Of course mathematicians do not at all intend to entrust machines to write poetry for us. But Andrei Kolmogorov applies mathematics to analyzing the problems of writing verse. Mathematics itself experiences a very strong influence of other sciences. When Kolmogorov tried to apply the mathematical methods of the theory of information to study works of literature he had to alter the very definition of information. In doing so he arrived at several new conceptions in keeping with which the theory of information was wrested from the theory of probability and rested on conceptions stemming from mathematical logic. Later Andrei Kolmogorov completely changed his point of view on the content of the theory of probability. Now he tries to substantiate it proceeding from the theory of information, from the new approach to this theory to which he had been prompted by his study of literary works. In the 30s of this century it seemed that mathematics only studies continuous functions, differentials, integrals, differential and integral equations. Yet, during the war the first electronic computers were made. Few people know that once there were two points of view regarding mathematical machines. There were machines of discrete action and machines of continuous action, reproducing functions and processes. The upper hand was gained completely and unequivocally by the discrete machine, by cipher computers, because any discrete alphabet makes it possible to record the most diverse phenomena with sufficient precision. Modern electronic machines are designed on this pattern. They use a language possessing a small number of letters, but by alternating these letters, they can describe highly intricate processes. The changes in mathematics connected with progress in other sciences and the changes in the sciences embracing mathematics and connected with the progress of mathematics are reflected in the way mathematics is taught. We still pay much attention to differential and integral calculus, which is only beginning to enter our secondary schools, but we are not stopping at this. Both in secondary and higher schools more and more attention is being paid to discrete mathematics connected with the new views on the world around us – views combined in the term "cybernetics”. http://methodiks.ucoz.ru/index/mathematics_headyman_for_all_sciences/0-268
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