Re: why does professor david c ullrich have to put people down to feel good about himself?

On Dec 4, 5:22 am, David C. Ullrich <dullr...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:20:05 EST, amy666 <tommy1...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
you didnt say it was trivial ?
No I didn't. So?

I promised that I wouldn't call Ullrich an
incompetent teacher. However, I will still
say that I _disagree_ with his teaching
style, and this post shows exactly why.

I didn't mention the converse until Robert did bccause it was
more fun to watch you guys go on and on in blithering ignorance.

Imagine a teacher saying, "It's more fun to
watch you students go on and on in
blithering ignorance than it is to actually
teach you anything."

Of course, there's nothing wrong with a
little entertainment. But if these posts are
representative of Ullrich's teaching style,
then I must disagree with it.

But the reason I didn't mention _this_ fact is that I (honestly)
assumed it was obvious to everyone.

Students enter class at differing levels
of ability. What may be obvious to the
teacher, or even some of the students,
may not necessarily be obvious to the
rest of the students.

is it trivial ?
Of course it is. If C and D commute then C and CD commute,
and hence exp(C) exp(CD) = exp(C+CD)  = exp(CD+C)  =  exp(CD) exp(C).

Originally, tommy1729 posted a conjecture,
but Ullrich pointed out that some of the
terms (A^C) weren't defined. Once I rewrote
the conjecture, replacing all undefined
terms with defined terms, the conjecture
turned out to be trivially true.

Since Israel posted why it was trivial, I
_learned_ a little as to why it was trivial,
and now I've _learned_ never to entertain a
similar conjecture again.

I've _learned_ something from Israel. I
didn't _learn_ anything from Ullrich. Thus,
in my opinion, Israel is actually more
effective as a teacher.


questions enough ?
to investigate ?
Giggle. Yeah, let's investigate this. Let's also investigate
whether the square root of 2 is irrational.

Depending on the ability level of the
students, many of them don't know that sqrt(2)
is not in Q, and many of those who do, don't
know why.

At some point you may realize that mathematicians know more
math than you do

I _do_ realize that some people know more math
than I do. That's why I post -- so that those
who know more math can teach me.

if that ever happens you'll stop making a
fool of yourself in public quite so often. Of course that will
be no fun.

To those with a higher math ability, those at a
lower math ability appear foolish, and to those
at a lower math ability, those with a higher
math ability appear confusing, and what they
say is too complicated to understand. I've been
on both ends of the spectrum (though mostly the
lower level on sci.math, but even tommy1729
knows more math than the average person out
there on the street). That's what makes teaching
math so tough, I admit.

It's like I make a series of posts on sci.engineering insisting
that bridges should be made of cheese instead of steel because
cheese is more biodegradable.

Depending on the level of ability of the
students, some students may actually not know
why bridges aren't made of cheese!

After a few weeks someone
finally takes pity on me and points out that cheese is not
strong enough to use for bridge construction.

It's not taking pity on a student to answer
their question -- it's called teaching!

At that point
I start complaining to other people that they didn't explain
that to me... they must have all been ignorant of the deep
secret fact that steel is stronger than cheese.

If a teacher doesn't teach a student, then the
student definitely has a right to complain!

Now, I admit that Ullrich doesn't _have_ to
post anything at all, much less a complete
answer to my or tommy1729's questions. But
still, that won't stop tommy1729 or me from
forming opinions about Ullrich's teaching
style based on the little information we have,
namely what Ullrich posts.
.

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