Teaching analysis to a computer-weaned generation: asking questions

It is widely acknowledged that the construction of working algorithms for prediction and performance assessment in the class of computationally-large real-world problems-loosely characterized as "wave interactions with complex environments"-is aided substantially by embedding analytic problem-matched physics-based modeling within numerical algorithms for greater computational efficiency and better understanding of complex wave phenomenology. To teach the necessary analytic underpinnings to a generation of students that has grown up with computers-commonly believing that computers, as such, solve complex problems, and that the printouts furnish physical insight-is a challenge to the academic community. Some reflections are aired here, using tongue-in-cheek humor to look at certain foibles in the engineering profession.