Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Those who oppose the use of the biblical account of creation in classes in science often do so in the spirit with which the great formalist, Hilbert, sundered pure and applied mathematics. One day he was asked to substitute in a class at a nearby technical school for his colleague, Felix Klein, where Klein used his intuitive approach to mathematics to obtain practical applications. Hilbert said to the engineers, ‘I understand that there are those.who feel there is some conflict between pure and applied mathematics. But this cannot be. Sie haben nichts mit einander zu tun.’