Re: Classical and Modern mathematics and (over?)specialization.

On Jun 22, 1:21 pm, Bacle <ba...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi:
   As a first-year student, I was surprised to see the
  degree of (what I thought was ) over-specialization
  in many students.
snip
Still, I see people who get their
   degrees in , e.g., algebra in two years, but
   do not know what an open set is , nor the definition
   of a Cauchy sequence, let alone basic results/defs.
   related to them, like the intersection of open sets
   being open, or that a space is complete if all
   Cauchy seqs. converge

Are you referring to an undergraduate program, a Masters program, or a
PhD program?

Is this a good thing (to be fair, these
   people do know their areas of specialty extremely
   well)?

On what do you base your conclusion? That they know what button on the
computer to push, that they seem to know a lot of fancy jargon,...?


     I have been told that this trend is more of a
    modern trend, where much of the subject is
   "black-boxed" , and the details don't matter,
    only the overall larger result, and what can
    be proven with it

Who told you this? A math prof, grad student, or is this just a
notion you think you've discerned?


I'm not trying to be combative, but you're saying things which in and
of themselves are worth examining and questioning.

HTH,
M
.

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