Re: Curing Einstein's Disease (is Copyrighted)
- From: NoEinstein <noeinstein@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 18:57:57 -0800 (PST)
On Feb 1, 10:59 am, Randy Poe <poespam-t...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 1, 10:29 am, PD <TheDraperFam...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 31, 11:09 pm, NoEinstein <noeinst...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
There is a ritual that physics professors go through: It's called
"deriving equations". They string lines of this and that together;
and faster than 'smart' students can write down, let alone question.
Not in my classes. The smart students just followed what I was doing
by watching and questioning now and again, and then they went back to
their dorm rooms or apartments and did it again for themselves. It was
the not so smart students that were trying to write everything down so
that they wouldn't have to work it out for themselves, and were so
busy writing that they didn't have time to think of any questions, let
alone asking them.
Wow. Could "NoEinstein" be any clearer in expressing
where his resentment comes from. He couldn't follow
a derivation, so he thinks it's black magic and pointless,
and furthermore projects his failings onto the rest
of the world, that NOBODY could follow a derivation.
What percentage of all of that wasted chalk scribbling have you used
in your daily life, Randy? Most of what passed for physics was
rubbish to allow the professor to fill time and get paid. The
students are just the justification for his being paid--and learning
(from him) has little to do with it.
The entire point of seeing derivations in a physics
class/text, like proofs in a math class/text, is so that
you don't just accept results on faith. You see where
they came from, what the starting point was and the
process to get to the result. I would hope that at
least the B students follow it and are able to describe
and reproduce it.
Most of the derivations, and supposed proofs are equations and
numbers. Real understanding comes only if one can express what the
think they know... in WORDS, too. Physicist's aren't too swift with
words.
With one exception (organic chemistry), I don't remember
any class I ever took where I was writing things down
without time to think about them, or was expected
to. Indeed, I learned pretty quickly that I could never
learn a subject unless my notes were paraphrases
rather than verbatim copies of what the professor was
saying.
Did NoEinstein never
Did you pass English, Randy?
take a single course where
students were pointing out errors (a dropped factor
of 2, a mistaken change of sign) that the professor
had made in a derivation? I would think that's the
norm.
Randy: Students correct their professor AT THEIR OWN PERIL!
I had one admittedly quirky (but nevertheless, or perhaps
because of it my favorite) professor who actually
insisted students not write anything down. He
expected you to follow what he was doing and
be able to reproduce it without the note-taking.
And if you asked him a question in the hall
afterward, he'd slap the paper out of your hand
if you tried to ask it by scribbling equations.
Smart fellow! If you can't express anything without looking at a
paper or text, you don't know anything. -- NoEinstein --
- Randy
.
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