Something I noticed a while back

There was an equation offered, or an equation that came out of very deep from sourced noticed light and the theory that this light would have to change idenities as it traveled from that distant source to the observers point.
This was the era, to where you paid to get into college or a university, however it was not important that you either had a fine mind, or were particularly adept in one area or the other.
The new credo would be, is think of it, then let a super computer come up with the answer.
Once we do or accomplish this, then we’ll let both the department and the university take the credit.
Something happed at this few years ago stage, which showed a certain frustration, in the ability to accept certain equations without them first being accepted by the computer.
Something came to my mind in thinking, that what happens if the computer would break down, civilization returned to a very simple level.
There would be no computers, therefore no higher finite math equations.
What was once academic snobbery would fade as an edifice, leaving only stupid students behind, as they had lost their abilities to think and postulate freely.
The issue , {can you postulate that red shift equal blue shift, as the pressures would be equal from far off distances of traveling}, was never an issue.
What was at issue, could people think without over relying on a super computer, or computers assisting them, at all?