Math of the Future

I recently read an article by Laszlo Lovasz describing some of the trends that have been taking place in modern mathematics and how they might impact math education.  The article is available at the following link: http://www.cs.elte.hu/~lovasz/lisbon.pdf.  Despite being published in 2008, I found it to be very relevant even eight years later.

The biggest eye-opener for me is how wrong I have been in considering 'mathematics' a closed area of research.  That all of the mathematical concepts and theories have been already discovered and that there is nowhere new to go.  Lovasz (2008) explains how the technological advances of the past 50 years, in combination with the increased ability to communicate and collaborate, have hugely increased the work and areas for future work in mathematics.

The author makes another interesting observation that so many of the mathematical advances of the last 200 years are not even being taught, as there is simply too much to learn in our current, traditional math curriculum.  He goes on to say that math is playing a larger role in fields outside of engineering and physics such as in biology and genetics.  This is so relevant given the push in recent years for integration of subjects and cross-curricular teaching initiatives.

I guess the implementation of what the article discusses could only be done with radical shifts and restructuring of our current approach to teaching math.  Naturally, this is unrealistic (at least in the short term), but maybe some of these trends and/or suggestions are worth considering in our modern age of technological advancement.

Lovasz, L. (2008).  Trends in Mathematics: How they could change education?  Retrieved on Nov 1, 2016 from http://www.cs.elte.hu/~lovasz/lisbon.pdf.