Michael F. Singer

Professor Emeritus

Department of Mathematics
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8205

email: singer AT  ncsu DOT edu

Office:SAS 4210
Secretary: 919 515 2382
FAX Number: 919 515 3798


Current Research Interests:

  • Differential and Difference Algebra
  • Symbolic Computation


This therefore is Mathematics:
   She reminds you of the invisible forms of the soul;
   She gives life to her own discoveries;
   She awakens the mind and purifies the intellect;
   She brings light to our intrinsic ideas;
   She abolishes oblivion and ignorance which
     are ours by birth.
    
                                -Proclus 412-485 AD                        

Il s'agit de voir
Tellment plus clair

De faire avec les choses
Comme la lumière.

                                -Eugène Guillevic 1907-1997


He was appalled by the examination system, when it was explained to him; he could not imagine a greater deterrent to the natural wish to learn than this pattern of cramming in information and disgorging it at demand. At first he refused to give any tests or grades, but this upset the University administrators so badly that, not wishing to be discourteous to his hosts, he gave in. He asked his students to write a paper on any problem in physics that interested them, and told them that he would give them all the highest mark, so that the bureaucrats would have something to write on their forms and lists. To his surprise a good many students came to him to complain. They wanted him to set the problems, to ask the right questions; they did not want to think about questions, but to write down the answers they had learned. And some of them objected strongly to his giving everyone the same mark. How could the diligent students be distinguished from the dull ones? What was the good in working hard? If no competitive distinctions were to be made, one might as well do nothing.

                                     The dispossessed
                                      Ursula K. Le Guin 1929-2018