Applied mathematics
Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that deals with mathematical methods that find use in science, engineering, business, computer science, and industry.
Contents
Description
Applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical science and specialized knowledge.
The term "applied mathematics" also describes the professional specialty in which mathematicians work on practical problems by formulating and studying mathematical models.
Pure mathematics
In the past, practical applications have motivated the development of mathematical theories, which then became the subject of study in pure mathematics where abstract concepts are studied for their own sake.
The activity of applied mathematics is thus intimately connected with research in pure mathematics.
Applied versus pure mathematics
Plato is important in the history of mathematics largely for his role as inspirer and director of others, and perhaps to him is due the sharp distinction in ancient Greece between arithmetic (in the sense of the theory of numbers) and logistic (the technique of computation).
Plato regarded logistic as appropriate for the businessman and for the man of war, who "must learn the art of numbers or he will not know how to array his troops."
The philosopher, on the other hand, must be an arithmetician "because he has to arise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being."
Source: Boyer, Carl B. (1991). "The age of Plato and Aristotle". A History of Mathematics (Second ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 86. ISBN 0-471-54397-7.
See also
General topics
- Business
- Computer science
- Engineering
- Mathematical physics
- Mathematical sciences
- Mathematics
- Science
