Timeline for Why do many graduate programs in mathematics (United States) still have foreign language requirements today (in 2010s)?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 24, 2019 at 22:42 | comment | added | Jeffiekins | While I can mostly read Latin (from 7th & 8th grade), I've never had to use that facility for mathematics that is still considered relevant. Maybe for History of Mathematics it could be useful, but I only wrote 1 paper for a single undergrad course in that, so I wouldn't know. But seriously, the Romans didn't even have zero. (That came from India by way of the Arab world.) | |
| Oct 10, 2018 at 8:18 | comment | added | Peter Taylor | I venture to suggest that Latin should be in the list of languages in the last sentence. | |
| Oct 9, 2018 at 22:58 | comment | added | paul garrett | @Anyon, maybe not all, but it is conceivable that many would be. Many serious, and still-not-resolved, issues were raised then. The only reason we don't see more references to those days is that very many people are not aware... apparently thinking that nothing worthwhile happened before they were born, etc. :) | |
| Oct 9, 2018 at 22:56 | comment | added | Anyon | @paulgarrett I'm probably just biased by my non-maths perspective, but it certainly seems unusual to me that all the references would be that old. | |
| Oct 9, 2018 at 22:43 | comment | added | paul garrett | @Anyon, I think your comment/question does accurately reflect the viewpoint of many grad students... but not so many faculty, insofar as the state of mathematics in the late 19th century was very close to our contemporary viewpoint (quite in contrast to other sciences, apparently). If I can have research students who have really assimilated the research-level mathematics prior to WWII (up to which time only a tiny fraction of serious mathematics was written in English) I'd be wildly happy. :) | |
| Oct 9, 2018 at 21:56 | comment | added | Anyon | It sounds like you did more of a math history project than graduate level research in math, no? Perhaps that isn't the best reason for a graduate program to make a foreign language mandatory for all their students. | |
| Oct 9, 2018 at 21:08 | history | answered | Jeffiekins | CC BY-SA 4.0 |