I'm sitting at my desk going through the Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm in preparation for my Cryptography final. There is nothing elegant about DES. The steps are tedious and it's no more than permutating bits over and over (and over and over) again. There's no real mathematics involved. It really is quite pointless.
Actually, the class itself is quite pointless. Unlike other (real) math classes, anyone can survive this class doing plug-and-chug. We barely scratched the surface of elliptic curves, which is an advanced topic that requires a lot of math background to begin to explain it. What we are doing right now is playing with formulas without understanding the beauty behind it, doing silly things like computing P+Q and 2P. It's too bad, but such is the nature of our crypto class.
Math really isn't all about plugging and chugging numbers. People often complain about math being difficult, and what they have in mind is high school precalculus and the like. How about picking up a copy of Rudin and be enlightened?
On a separate note, are any of you following the World Cup? I'm rooting for Germany this year. It's too bad this is all happening during finals week. I'm so overwhelmed by finals, presentations, and papers that I couldn't watch every match. I know these beginning matches aren't so important, but I still want to watch! Roar!
I have written way more than I usually do. Shocking. | 
