what... are... you... READING

[Christopher McCandless]

Calculus: One and several variables, by Salas Hille and Etgen.

Salas and Hille's Calculus was my calculus book as well.

I think that it's a pretty good one.

It is a pretty good book, though it has an awful lot of stuff I dont need in it. Its a nuisence trying to find all the stuff I need in it, especially as my lecturer is a bit lousy, and calls things by different names.

[The_P]

I was reading both my French Dictionary and English Grammar booklet last night. *groan*

[enronh]

oooh, i'd be interested in your take on that book.  (i read it a while back).  do report back when you've finished it, won't you?

Sure thing, Lucifer.

[zer0]

I'm currently re-reading "The Idiot" by Dostoevsky. For some reason, I feel a strong kinship with the naïve protagonist who always gets fooled by the constant lies of everyone around him. I can recommend the book if you've never read it, it's one of my favorites.

[Callaway]

Calculus: One and several variables, by Salas Hille and Etgen.

Salas and Hille's Calculus was my calculus book as well.

I think that it's a pretty good one.

It is a pretty good book, though it has an awful lot of stuff I dont need in it. Its a nuisence trying to find all the stuff I need in it, especially as my lecturer is a bit lousy, and calls things by different names.

It's difficult for a freshman to judge the information in his calculus book that he will need later, though.  

The stuff that you think you don't need may be the theory that explains the rest of it.  It's important too.

[Calandale]

I'm currently re-reading "The Idiot" by Dostoevsky. For some reason, I feel a strong kinship with the naïve protagonist who always gets fooled by the constant lies of everyone around him. I can recommend the book if you've never read it, it's one of my favorites.

I love him. Ought to reread it myself.

[Calandale]

The stuff that you think you don't need may be the theory that explains the rest of it.  It's important too.

The theory's the ONLY important thing.
For me, everything else fades almost immediately.
But, you're unlikely to need to use the rest IRL,
I'd guess.

[Callaway]

The stuff that you think you don't need may be the theory that explains the rest of it.  It's important too.

The theory's the ONLY important thing.
For me, everything else fades almost immediately.
But, you're unlikely to need to use the rest IRL,
I'd guess.

That depends on whether you go into a technical field or not.  You would be surprised how useful it can be later, but you can't always predict exactly what you will need.

[Calandale]

I've needed some, but calculators are
good enough to get an answer. It's
the odd situations where you need the
theory, which really try you.

[Callaway]

I've needed some, but calculators are
good enough to get an answer. It's
the odd situations where you need the
theory, which really try you.

I agree that in the long run it's more important to know the theory behind the formulas than it is to just know how to "plug and chug" to do the homework or get answers on a test.

[Calandale]

Hell, they let us use calculators for the
last calc class that I took. REALLY helped
me guess what methods of integration I
needed to use.

[Callaway]

Hell, they let us use calculators for the
last calc class that I took. REALLY helped
me guess what methods of integration I
needed to use.

My husband never let his students use calculators, but if the answer was pi / 2, he considered that a perfectly valid answer.

Calculators made it too easy for them to cheat.

[Calandale]

Well, all depends on what is considered cheating.
We had to have a pretty good idea of the how,
even though the calculator gave the exact answer
(i.e. it would give pi/2). For whatever reason, this
was tremendously helpful to me, though other students
had difficulty with the problems still.

Previously though, every calc class I took allowed at
best a scientific calc (and usually not even that). Totally
different, as it focused more on memorizing the methods
of integration, rather than asking more complex applied
problems. I'm not certain how much value there is in
the memorization side. Certainly not much, if you're going
to go on in mathematics. I mean, real analysis is the closest
you'll get to calculus in upper level classes, and it's all theory.

[Callaway]

My husband is a mathematician.

Many of the scientific calculators could be programmed to have the contents of a "cheat sheet" in them, so he just made problems with "nice" numbers and he did not require the students to simplify answers beyond that.

Except for one final exam where he had a class full of cheaters, so he made the social security number test, where there were nine problems with boxes in which the student was supposed to put the nine digits of his social security number.

They still did not have to simplify their answers.

He had a lot of complaints from the cheating students on that one. 

They said, "What if we refuse to do it?"

He said that it was their choice, but if they didn't they would get no credit for the exam, since there was no place for their names on the exam.

 

[Calandale]

My husband is a mathematician.

I figured, if he was teaching calc. My father is,
as well, and doesn't allow them either. But, I've
noticed that the younger professors seem more
willing to head in this direction.

Many of the scientific calculators could be programmed to have the contents of a "cheat sheet" in them, so he just made problems with "nice" numbers and he did not require the students to simplify answers beyond that.

Right. One could put whatever they wanted
in a TI-92, what I used. Even has a Qwerty keyboard.
But, the tests were also open book, which I strongly
support, so a cheat sheet is pointless, really. It forces the
tests to be more conceptual, and less memorization. Being
a calc class, of course, there's still a lot of computation, but
the focus was much more on setting up the correct method
for solving the problem, and less on simply knowing the right
tactic.

There are definitely arguments both ways. But, I find that knowing
how to use resources that you will likely have in the real world effectively
is far more important than cramming the different mechanisms into your
head. Especially when you are very unlikely to need to just do these from
memory ever again.

Actually, at the extreme end of the spectrum, a former professor of mine,
many many years ago, was arguing that we shouldn't teach children the
multiplication tables, or more math than is needed to be able to just use
a calculator. I'd be pretty unhappy without being able to do simple arithmetic,
but his point was about a waste of resources. He too was a mathematician. 

Except for one final exam where he had a class full of cheaters, so he made the social security number test, where there were nine problems with boxes in which the student was supposed to put the nine digits of his social security number.

They still did not have to simplify their answers.

He had a lot of complaints from the cheating students on that one. 

They said, "What if we refuse to do it?"

He said that it was their choice, but if they didn't they would get no credit for the exam, since there was no place for their names on the exam.

 

Cute. Especially the last part.