Re: Good lectures

[John Cooper <jcooper@BUCKNELL.EDU>]

On Thu, 3 May 2001, David T. Marx wrote:
> "If anyone can solve this, I'll pay $100 to the first student that has
> the solution."
 ...

> After that, I took as many classes as I could with him and learned
> a lot.
  I believe it was Dudley Herschbach, when he was at Berkeley, who found
that offering a trivial inducement (~$.25) to members of his classes to
be the first to find errors in manuscripts in preparation for submission
resulted in excellent editing; but he had to quit when the costs became
prohibitive.
  As I recall Robert Connick, an inorganic chemist, gave as a final exam a
published paper rife with errors; 5 pts for each correct correction.
Maximum score: 100.

 John N. Cooper, Chemistry
 Bucknell University
 Lewisburg PA 17837-2005
 jcooper@bucknell.edu
 http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jcooper
 VOX 570-577-3673    FAX 570-577-1739