Re: Programming skills required by mathematicians?

Thanks guys, for all the comments and suggestions!

I'm actually going to dual major in Physics and Mathematics. I need no
more than good education to stay put with my current ambitions of
becoming a pure thinker with mathematics and physics as my tools of
analysis. But, yes, I posted it here so that I could have an idea of
what I should do the next few idle weeks before college.

I think I'm going to focus on my C++ skills as of now because those
CAS and SAGE and other software were a bit too specific and less
versatile for my interests now.

Actually I came up with this thread after pondering over how the MU-
puzzle presented in "Goedel, Escher and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid"
could be solved mechanically. It was frustrating to think that your
quest to prove a theorem had a well established methodology but was of
mechanical complexity and had no guarantee of hitting the bottom. I
guess that's where programming comes in. I figured it could be done
simply using C++ (perhaps with a little more expertise than I have
now). But, I was just curious if there was some program out there that
you can use for such things.

As for the books suggested, well, thanks. But, I guess I oculd do with
more books like GEB so that I get an insight into some exciting parts
of pure sciences that would keep me motivated and excited (not exactly
instructing me on how to do stuff) while I learn the real deal through
formal education.

Thanks again.