This was the original description, used by students to choose this course.

Experimental Mathematics, with Computer-Aided Discovery and Verification

A Byrne seminar

Stephen J. Greenfield (Mathematics)

Mathematics has a reputation as a deductive intellectual enterprise. However, almost all of its practitioners have reasoned inductively, going from special examples to more general examples and then to abstract results. Over the last few centuries, such experiments have become less accessible to amateurs as the structure of the subject, and the computations needed, have become more intricate. Enter experimental mathematics: the introduction and accessibility of fast and easily used symbolic, numerical, and graphical computational environments. This seminar will explore experimental mathematics and how new environments, such as Maple and Mathematica, enable almost everyone to experiment with and discover new mathematics.


Maintained by greenfie@math.rutgers.edu and last modified 1/13/2009.