From owner-qed Thu May 12 11:49:36 1994
Received: from cats.ucsc.edu (cats-po-1.UCSC.EDU [128.114.129.22]) by antares.mcs.anl.gov (8.6.4/8.6.4) with ESMTP id LAA05624 for <qed@antares.mcs.anl.gov>; Thu, 12 May 1994 11:49:27 -0500
From: beeson@cats.ucsc.edu
Received: from si.UCSC.EDU by cats.ucsc.edu with SMTP
	id JAA14681; Thu, 12 May 1994 09:49:21 -0700
Received: by si.UCSC.EDU (8.6.9/4.7) id JAA01648; Thu, 12 May 1994 09:49:20 -0700
Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 09:49:20 -0700
Message-Id: <199405121649.JAA01648@si.UCSC.EDU>
To: beeson@cats.ucsc.edu, bshults@fireant.ma.utexas.edu
Subject: Re: Rusty Lusks question
Cc: qed@antares.mcs.anl.gov, TRYBULEC%PLBIAL11.BITNET@ANLVM.CTD.ANL.GOV

>> This type of comment is not condusive to starting conversation.  Nor,
>> I think, is this attitude consistent with the goals of the QED project.

Whose attitude?  Mine, or that of the mathematicians who don't talk to
each other?  Observe that my comment DID ALREADY start a conversation!
Now, to continue it:  if (one of) the aim(s) of the QED project is to
computerize mathematics in such a way that MATHEMATICIANS use the
computerization,  then we had better pay some attention to the sociology
of mathematics, I mean, to the way in which mathematicians actually
accomplish their work.  The point of my "observation" is that most
mathematicians (the ones I know, and the ones Thurston writes about)
seem to feel that they are doing just fine as it is:  they know how to
do their work and they aren't crying out for computer support.  So if
we hope to avoid the fate of Principia Mathematica (on shelves gathering
dust),  we need to think about how to do that.