Student Questions You Love to Hate Monte J. Zerger

Questions like the following usually induce two differ- ent responses in me, one following on the heels of the other. First comes the "revenge response," the desire to repay the student with a terse, annihilating reply. This response wells up from the shadow side of my being, and threatens to erupt in an ugliness not becoming of a college professor. So, I suppress i t - - except on extremely rare occasions-- and feigning joviality, settle for a sensi- ble and harmless one.

See if you can place yourself in the following scenarios, and recognize the reaction.

1. SITUATION: You have just presented a marvel of ab- stract mathematics whose beauty does things for you that only Rembrandt and Beethoven do. You are transported far above any thought or concern for possible applica- tions to the imperfect, mundane world below. Then from the back of the room comes - -

QUESTION: "Where would I ever use this?"

REACTION: Valiantly, you fight back the impulse to put the student where he deserves-by replying with some- thing frivolous like "On your wedding night" or "While being held in a Mexican jail on trumped-up charges."

2. SITUATION: You are sitting in your office five min- utes before your class is to begin. A student who missed the previous lecture bounces into your office, and in- quires with an annoying air of nonchalance and frivolity,

QUESTION: "Did I miss anything important Wednes- day?"

REACTION: You catch yourself just in time to stop these words, dripping with sarcasm, from rolling off the end of your tongue: "No, it was just like every other day."

THE MATHEMATICAL INTELLIGENCER VOL- 16, NO- 4 ~)1994 Springer-Verlag New York 2 9

A. Lasota, Silesian University, Katowice, Poland; M. C. Maekey, McGill University, Montreal, Que.

Chaos, Fractals and Noise Stochastic Aspects of Dynamics 2nd ed. 1994. XlV, 472 pp. 48 figs. (Applied Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 97) Hardcover $ 49.00 ISBN 0-387-94049-9

This book treats a variety of mathematical systems generating densities, ranging from one-dimeusional discrete time transforma- tions through continuous time systems described by integro-partial- differential equations. Examples have been drawn from a variety of sciences to illustrate the utility of the techniques presented.

This material was organized and written to be accessible to scien- tists with knowledge of advanced calculus and differential equa- tions. Various concepts from measure theory, ergodic theory, the geometry of manifolds, partial differential equations, probability theory and iarkov processes, chastic integrals and differential equations are introduced.

The past few years have witnessed an explosive growth in interest in physical, biological, and economic systems that could be profit- ably studied using densities. Due to the general inaccessibility of the mathematical literature to the non-mathematician, there has been little diffusion of the concepts and techniques from ergodic theory into the study of these "chaotic" systems. This book intends to bridge that gap.

@ Springe In EC countt~ the local V,~ b effective, r

directory "v~- ~ . ~ l ~ e ~ e r BOe.hff' or our gemTal catalogue, rb.1302/I~lT/V/2h

Sprlnger-Vedag D Hetdelberger Phtz 3, D-14197 Borlia, F. K C, ormany D 175 Fifth Ave., New ~brk, NY 10010, USA D 8 Alexandra gd., London $W19 7JZ, Enghnd O 26, n~e des Carmes, F-75005 Paris, France O 37-3, Hungo 3-c.home, Bunk'yoqm, Tokyo U3, Japan [] Room 701, Mirror Tower, 61 Mody Road, Tsimshatsul, Kowloon, Hong Kong [] Avgguda D I ~ , 468-4~ E-08006 Barceloun, Spin [] Wessel~flyl u. 28, H-1075 Budapest, Hungary

3. SITUATION: The lecture was one of your best, but somehow you manage once again to misjudge the looks on the faces of the students, and naively believe that a significant transfer of mathematical knowledge has been taking place. You are riding on "cloud nine," eagerly awaiting the chance to field questions about it from the class. When you ask for questions, a student in the front row responds,

QUESTION: "Will this be on the test?"

REACTION: The "little guy" in your head goes berserk. "This is what I get in return!" you hear him say. "No ex- citement, no awe, no nothing, but concern about the next test." It frequently causes you to grip your eraser until your knuckles turn white, while you fight the impulse to throw it at him.

4. SITUATION: You are seated at your desk wading through a seemingly endless (and endlessly disappoint- ing) stack of exams. Papers and books from a pet project you 've had to push aside are strewn everywhere. Buried in work, you don' t even hear the student seeking help approaching your open door. But you do hear, and all too clearly,

QUESTION: "Are you busy?"

REACTION: Even though this happens time and time again, you are invariably so completely overcome by the incredible nature of the query that you can only smile wanly and reply in defeat, "No."

You can probably add to the list. Others I've collected include:

5. "How do you do word problems?" I must admit I have in moments of weakness succumbed to temptation and responded, "While seated in the lotus position, meditat- ing before a candle in a bare room."

6. "How come I understand it when you're doing it in class, but when I get home I can't do it?"

7. "What would I need to get on the final to get a B in the course?" This one typically comes a day or two before the final.

8. "What is calculus anyway?"

Don't get me wrong. I love teaching, and I love my stu- dents. But recently, I have been contemplating a totally selfish action, that of amending all m y syllabi to include another, innocuous-looking requirement for successful completion of the course. It would simply refer students to an attached page of questions, headed by a blunt in- struction: "DO NOT ASK ANY OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS."

School of Science, Mathematics, and Technology Adams State College Alamosa, CO 81102 USA

30 THE MATHEMATICAL INTELL[GENCER VOL. 16, NO. 4, 1994