What is new and different in the world of mathematics? Where is mathematics going in the future? What questions are mathematicians asking and exploring?

Tools Used in Calculation

Let's compare two of the instruments of calculation widely used during the last 50 years of the twentieth century. The slide rule is a portable calculator once carried by engineers so that they could quickly perform complicated calculations. Compare the slide rule, now a collector's item, to the graphing calculator used by high school students taking basic algebra. The graphing calculator can be used to do much more—more accurately and more easily.

The use of powerful calculators and computers will be an integral part of the mathematical problems and questions investigated in the future. Some classic problems, such as those involved with prime numbers, the geometry of soap bubbles, and the four-color theorem about...