We defend pluralism in mathematics, and in particular Errett Bishop's constructive approach to mathematics, on pragmatic grounds, avoiding the philosophical issues which have dissuaded many mathematicians from taking it seriously. We also explain the computational value of interval arithmetic.

We compare experimental melting curves of short heterogeneous DNA oligomers with theoretical curves derived from statistical mechanics. Partition functions are computed with the one-dimensional Peyrard-Bishop (PB) Hamiltonian, already used in the study of the melting of long DNA chains. Working with short chains we take into account, in the computations, not only the breaking of the interstrand...