A reply in the March 8 LA Times to the opinion piece by Edward Frenkel discussed here yesterday—
"It is completely wrong to imply that Euclidean geometry is somehow not interesting because it is old. Actually, Euclidean geometry appeals not only in its intrinsic mathematical nature but also in its power to explain what one sees around one spatially.
If this subject is taught badly, like any other subject it can seem tedious. If it is taught well, it arouses the sense of the intellectual power and attractiveness of mathematical thought as well as or better than anything else that can be presented to a beginner.
One of the points of mathematics educationally is to introduce students to a subject in which precise thought exists. They are surrounded by a world of baloney versions of science. Mathematics is where they find out that really precise thought exists. The last thing they need is to be given the impression that mathematics is another subject in which learning a few buzzwords is the whole show.
Modern mathematics can exist only because older mathematics has existed.
Robert E. Greene
Pacific Palisades
The writer is a professor of mathematics at UCLA."