My assignment is to examine the question of why we teach mathematics as a service subject. This question is of course also very much in evidence in many other papers at this meeting. It will be studied in the present paper from the point of view of this particular author, who spent a 35–year career as a mathematician in industry, both as a mathematical researcher and as leader of a group engaged in research in the mathematical sciences. We begin with some anecdotes, examples of incidents in the old Bell Telephone Laboratories before 1984, which have helped to shape my thoughts about mathematics service teaching. These examples of formative experiences will be followed by some of their implications for mathematics education, and by some broader observations about the telecommunications industry and its relations to the mathematical sciences. Finally, we shall include some thoughts on the “why” of teaching mathematics in a larger sense.

Incidents

We begin, as we said, with some incidents during my career which have helped to shape and to modulate my ideas on the purposes of mathematics as a service subject.

1 I was a member of a committee considering the promotion of a young man who served in the role of a technical associate in the area responsible for semi-conductor device development. One of the exhibits which formed the basis of the promotion request was an internal memorandum he had written on the removal of impurities in a semi-conductor material.