5 ms·

Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

136 points by hargup 10y ago

kelukelugames 10y ago
>Everyone in the audience has come to listen to your lecture with the secret hope of hearing their work mentioned. People are narcissistic as hell.
- LionessLover 10y ago
  Do you like it when I reply to your comment, thereby indicating that I read it, and by replying I further show that it was more important to me than many other comments I didn't reply to? That's what you were hoping for when you wrote your reply, didn't you? :-)
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Surely your comment only works if you're 'famous' on HN.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - LionessLover 10y ago
      So you think people comment and don't care if nobody ever responds to them? That they don't like getting reactions (not counting the negative ones - which of course according to you nobody cares about either, unless you are "famous" - because for some inexplicable reason(ing) only famous people like positive and fear negative responses)?
      - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
        No, people do like get a response as you suggest. I was trying to suggest as an analogue of the situation in the OP, that was being satirically commented on, that in order to properly mirror the situation your comment would need to come from someone with renown in the current locus. If people are really listening to the lecture hoping to be namechecked then it would be because they consider the lecturer to be a worthy in some way, surely?
wodahs02 10y ago
The Feynman method is a nice hack. Good mental model.
bluenose69 10y ago
I have a colleague who gives great talks. There are three reasons they are great. (1) The science is great. (2) He speaks engagingly and explains his (complex) material very well.(3) He always includes a citation and some very specific remarks on the single paper that I can read, to learn more. This third thing is the most important to the growth of the academic field, because solitary study is usually required to make progress, and nobody has time to read dozens of papers in a field that is not quite their own.
amelius 10y ago
The link points to the middle of the article.
- caipre 10y ago
  It's because it's been submitted before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3220746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3220746
  - aab0 10y ago
    Yes, but if you're trying to get around the duplicate detector, you can usually just append a query string like '?2'. Or, if the server tries to interpret query strings and that would be bad, it'd be friendlier to the read to instead use a non-existent div like '#2'. Bypasses the duplicate detector, specifies how many resubmissions, and doesn't jump the reader somewhere in the article. (Although I should note that I think the one OP chose is one of the two best ones, so no real harm done.)
- dang 10y ago
  We fixed that.
spennant 10y ago
Very odd to see this here. I had recently been Googling the writings of the late professor. He as a few lists like this out there.
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
"An audience is like a herd of cows, moving slowly in the direction they are being driven towards. If we make one point, we have a good chance that the audience will take the right direction; if we make several points, then the cows will scatter all over the field." Then proceeds to make several points. Good stuff, though. Rule, exception, moo.
- ianai 10y ago
  He was talking about a lecture. A webpage in this form is a static entity that you can go to and come back from multiple times and leave with as many thoughts.
smarks 10y ago
This was brilliant. Thanks for (re)posting it. I had never heard of Rota before. I'll have to read more about him. It's a bit sad that he lived for only a couple years after this lecture, dying at the relatively young age of 66. (Wikipedia)
- aardvarks 10y ago
  Rota was quite the celebrity, at least among students. In addition to advanced classes in his specialty, he taught differential equations, which was required for at least two thirds of undergraduates, so everyone knew him. Each semester he would pay a diffeq student to have a can of Coke ready for him at each class, so he could drink it while he lectured. Also, anyone who asked a question during lecture (a room of ~350 people) would get a free Hershey's bar after class. That he had worked in (and sometimes taught) philosophy as well as math was kind of the icing on the cake. There was also a persistent rumor that he'd once given a diffeq multiple choice exam (scored like the SAT, so that a fraction of a point was deducted for every wrong answer) on which the average score was 1 or 2 percent, ie simply handing in a blank exam would probably have given a passing score. But I never confirmed that.
  - sn9 10y ago
    Speaking of Rota and differential equations, he also wrote a rant about the terrible state of teaching differential equations [0]. [0] https://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/lg5/Rota.pdf https://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/lg5/Rota.pdf
csl 10y ago
> Every mathematician has only a few tricks Can anyone in the know illuminate this with some examples?
- ianai 10y ago
  My favorite complex analysis book makes repeated use of the same infinite sum throughout. He's probably referring to such things as well as logical tactics. There are even books written on this sort of thing. I think you can find them as "tactics for problem solving" or some such.
mixmastamyk 10y ago
I found number 10 (old age) interesting in that I'm approaching it, hehe. I understood what he wrote for the most part, but could have used a bit more exposition. Anyone want to try describing it, perhaps from another angle?

136 points by hargup 10y ago

>Everyone in the audience has come to listen to your lecture with the secret hope of hearing their work mentioned. People are narcissistic as hell.

LionessLover 10y ago
Do you like it when I reply to your comment, thereby indicating that I read it, and by replying I further show that it was more important to me than many other comments I didn't reply to? That's what you were hoping for when you wrote your reply, didn't you? :-)
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Surely your comment only works if you're 'famous' on HN.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - LionessLover 10y ago
    So you think people comment and don't care if nobody ever responds to them? That they don't like getting reactions (not counting the negative ones - which of course according to you nobody cares about either, unless you are "famous" - because for some inexplicable reason(ing) only famous people like positive and fear negative responses)?
    - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      No, people do like get a response as you suggest. I was trying to suggest as an analogue of the situation in the OP, that was being satirically commented on, that in order to properly mirror the situation your comment would need to come from someone with renown in the current locus. If people are really listening to the lecture hoping to be namechecked then it would be because they consider the lecturer to be a worthy in some way, surely?

wodahs02 10y ago

The Feynman method is a nice hack. Good mental model.

bluenose69 10y ago

I have a colleague who gives great talks. There are three reasons they are great. (1) The science is great. (2) He speaks engagingly and explains his (complex) material very well.(3) He always includes a citation and some very specific remarks on the single paper that I can read, to learn more. This third thing is the most important to the growth of the academic field, because solitary study is usually required to make progress, and nobody has time to read dozens of papers in a field that is not quite their own.

amelius 10y ago

The link points to the middle of the article.

caipre 10y ago
It's because it's been submitted before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3220746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3220746
- aab0 10y ago
  Yes, but if you're trying to get around the duplicate detector, you can usually just append a query string like '?2'. Or, if the server tries to interpret query strings and that would be bad, it'd be friendlier to the read to instead use a non-existent div like '#2'. Bypasses the duplicate detector, specifies how many resubmissions, and doesn't jump the reader somewhere in the article. (Although I should note that I think the one OP chose is one of the two best ones, so no real harm done.)
dang 10y ago
We fixed that.

spennant 10y ago

Very odd to see this here. I had recently been Googling the writings of the late professor. He as a few lists like this out there.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago

"An audience is like a herd of cows, moving slowly in the direction they are being driven towards. If we make one point, we have a good chance that the audience will take the right direction; if we make several points, then the cows will scatter all over the field." Then proceeds to make several points. Good stuff, though. Rule, exception, moo.

ianai 10y ago
He was talking about a lecture. A webpage in this form is a static entity that you can go to and come back from multiple times and leave with as many thoughts.

smarks 10y ago

This was brilliant. Thanks for (re)posting it. I had never heard of Rota before. I'll have to read more about him. It's a bit sad that he lived for only a couple years after this lecture, dying at the relatively young age of 66. (Wikipedia)

aardvarks 10y ago
Rota was quite the celebrity, at least among students. In addition to advanced classes in his specialty, he taught differential equations, which was required for at least two thirds of undergraduates, so everyone knew him. Each semester he would pay a diffeq student to have a can of Coke ready for him at each class, so he could drink it while he lectured. Also, anyone who asked a question during lecture (a room of ~350 people) would get a free Hershey's bar after class. That he had worked in (and sometimes taught) philosophy as well as math was kind of the icing on the cake. There was also a persistent rumor that he'd once given a diffeq multiple choice exam (scored like the SAT, so that a fraction of a point was deducted for every wrong answer) on which the average score was 1 or 2 percent, ie simply handing in a blank exam would probably have given a passing score. But I never confirmed that.
- sn9 10y ago
  Speaking of Rota and differential equations, he also wrote a rant about the terrible state of teaching differential equations [0]. [0] https://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/lg5/Rota.pdf https://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/lg5/Rota.pdf

csl 10y ago

> Every mathematician has only a few tricks Can anyone in the know illuminate this with some examples?

ianai 10y ago
My favorite complex analysis book makes repeated use of the same infinite sum throughout. He's probably referring to such things as well as logical tactics. There are even books written on this sort of thing. I think you can find them as "tactics for problem solving" or some such.

mixmastamyk 10y ago

I found number 10 (old age) interesting in that I'm approaching it, hehe. I understood what he wrote for the most part, but could have used a bit more exposition. Anyone want to try describing it, perhaps from another angle?