Re: A short survey.

[Joseph Bellina <jbellina@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

I just checked by two copies of Frank and my Slater and Frank...the
Frank book...1934 edition is the one for beginning students, and has no
comment about their ability, but does stress the need to focus on
logical development and avoid extraneous stuff...not an opinion I
currently share.  The Slater and Frank Theoretical Physics...for
advanced students does comment on the need to develop a variety of
mathematical skills to solve problems, as an experimentalist has a set
of skills to solve experimental problems, and further that the setting
up of the problem is one key part, the other being developing the
solution strategy.
In neither case did deficiency show up, difficulty yes, but not
deficiency.  I wonder what your read.

cheers,

joe

On Thu, 6 Sep 2001, Jack Uretsky
wrote:

> Long ago I posted a quote from the early 'thirties by J, C, Slater (or
> maybe it was Slater and Frank) commenting that MIT students were deficient
> in their abilities to set up equations.  The quote is from the
> introduction to a book on introductory physics for Freshmen.
>
> So what's new?
>                                                 Regards,
>                                                         Jack
>
> --
> Franz Kafka's novels and novella's are so Kafkaesque that one has to
> wonder at the enormity of coincidence required to have produced a writer
> named Kafka to write them.
>                         Greg Nagan from "The Metamorphosis" in
>                      <The 5-MINUTE ILIAD and Other Classics>

Joseph J. Bellina, Jr.               219-284-4662
Associate Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556