What follows appeared in a letter to the editor of the Globe and Mail on September 18, 1996. The letter was written by Professor John Coleman, who has been a prominent figure in Canadian mathematics for many years and is currently Emeritus Professor at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Professor Coleman captures well what mathematics is and what it is not.

[In a recent article, the author has] "confused the role of mathematics with that of physics and perpetuates the widespread, but grossly mistaken, idea that mathematics is arithmetic.

To mathematize is a natural habit of the human mind. Mathematics, as a science, is the systematic exploitation of human delight in totally abstract thought. To really appreciate this science does require disciplined effort but, for example, not more than is needed to master one of Bach's 48 Fugues on the piano.

On page 224 of his popular book Symmetries and Reflections, Nobel prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner states, `The principle emphasis of mathematics is on the invention of concepts.' On page 237, he writes: `The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.'

Anyone who wants to understand the forces which have driven the extraordinary transformation of civilization in this century can do no better than read the second chapter of Alfred North Whitehead's Science in the Modern World. This will provide background for his statement in 1941: `If civilization continues to advance, in the next 2000 years the overwhelming novelty in human thought will be the dominance of mathematical understanding.' "