Anyone trying to locate the Magma site should beware that a number of previous search engine weblinks and email addresses for it are broken. The following link appears to be current: http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/magma/ Fred Lunnon On 11/17/05, dasimov@earthlink.net <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
John McKay wrote:
<< . . . perhaps someone can tell us when numerical approximations are useful? . . .
Sure:
* When you're experimenting with concrete cases to try to find or confirm a pattern.
* When for similar reasons you want to see a fairly accurate visual depiction of a mathematical object or of some statistics related to one.
* When you want to display a result that cannot to your knowledge be expressed in closed form.
(And, I'm sure, for many other reasons.)
--Dan _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun