In reply to John Fang’s letter “Step Away from the Computer” (Physics Today, July 2009, page 12), I suggest that the writer has mischaracterized the potential use of computers and the internet. The internet offers the opportunity for high-quality teaching and research. I offer two examples from my own experience.
First, my own area of research—numerical methods for ordinary and partial differential equations and for mathematical ophthalmology and oncology—is interdisciplinary. Our research group can follow the current literature far more effectively and efficiently by using the internet than by going to a conventional library.
Second, we can now compute solutions to systems of ordinary and partial differential equations that could only be imagined before computers; certainly that is also true in physics—for example, in general relativity.
The perceived misuse or abuse of computers and the internet may be due to our failure as teachers to acquaint students with the opportunities they provide. In the absence of such guidance, students may squander those opportunities. But rather than blame the technologies or the students, perhaps we should do a little more introspection and improve our teaching to assist students in using computers and the internet more effectively.
