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- Feel Wonderful About Adding to Society's
Knowledge Base
- Discovered Applied Research is Both
Useful and Interesting to Non-Mathematicians
- Found Applied Work is Fun!
- Learned About Real Applications of
Mathematics
- Proving Helpful in Advising
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I find it extraordinary and wonderful to be able to add to the knowledge
our society has about a subject and to be able to discuss these new
ideas with others who know the subject area. For myself, I am most
amazed and pleased by the way a very difficult problem can be so difficult
that one need not know too much before one knows something which no
one else knows. With mathematical research that is purely mathematical,
it is impossible to explain the research in a field to someone who
hasn't spent years studying that precise field. While this research
can be useful and very challenging, it can be terribly isolated and
isolating. The undergraduate research I've been involved in is anything
but isolating. It is necessarily social in its implications and in
its methods. And it's fun.
As for my future students, this research experience has been the
single best educator for me to be able to answer their most basic
and vociferous question: "What is mathematics for?" Finally, I have
a real experiential answer other than "it's beautiful". I can see
myriad uses for the work we've done and the work we will do. I can
now actually imagine what an "industrial mathematician" does. And
I can better explain to someone who wants to know what they can
do in the future, what opportunities they have. |
