Abstract: In this hands-on seminar, participants will explore selected features of the entirely rewritten "JAVA vector field analyzer II", which is available free on the WWW at http://math.asu.edu/~kawski

The main focus is on how such software allows everyone (as demanded in the NSF [George report] "Shaping the Future") to experience "doing math like professional mathematicans do". We understand this as a process that starts with experiments and observations, and which through conjectures, eventually leads to theorems and definitions and axioms. The keys to making this possible are the highly interactive
nature of the software and its reliance on a very "visual language" which for many purposes is much more powerful than the traditional algebraic symbols.

To prepare for a lively discussion we suggest that participants  review -for comparison - the way curl, divergence and  Stokes'  theorem are introduced in their favorite textbook.

This work was partially supported by the NSF under the grant DUE 97-52453.