The mathematical landscape has changed considerably in the last 10 years.
Computers are responsible for much of that transformation.
One mathematician, Stanford University's Joseph Keller, even remarked in 1986 that at his university, the mathematics department has fewer computers than any other department, including French literature. Many mathematicians have the feeling that using a computer is akin to cheating and say that computation is merely an excuse for not thinking harder. By providing vivid images that suggest new questions and by allowing a wide variety of calculations of test cases, computers are helping to mend a rift that had developed more than a century ago between pure and applied mathematics. The recent arrival of print and electronic journals such as Experimental Mathematics and Communications in Visual Mathematics testifies to the power of computation in contemporary mathematical research. Of the new material added to The Mathematical Tourist , a large proportion involves some sort of computation in the service of mathematics.