Also, the concept of a 'variable' is introduced in algebra, so pretty much all of modern computer science (post-Turing, that is*) relies on algebra. To continue this incessant attack on the education of maths, the way that discrete maths and algorithms are taught leaves a lot to be desired. Basically, it consists almost entirely of following basic algorithms for finding optimal routes in weighted graphs. * Here, 'post-' is the prefix meaning 'after', to avoid confusion with the 'Post-Turing machine' named after Emil Post and Alan Turing. This is, of course, evident from my use of a lower-case 'p' in 'post'. Speaking of Alan Turing, there's an online petition to encourage the Government to grant an official pardon to him. I'm one of those 35K signatures; we need to raise that total to 10^5 before November for it to reach the House of Commons: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/23526 Sincerely, Adam P. Goucher