Discussion from 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11747598
From 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3220746
Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
11–20 of 31 posts
Re: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good portion of these points involve "integrate into the mathematical exposition methods of your time" and become useless as exposition methods change. If blackboards are supplanted by digital whiteboard that autoerase or autoscroll, exposition may different - slide techniques would be useful to include. Another portion involve the "exposition culture" - that the greatest of a given mathematician still has to inter…
Blackboards are much better as lecture tools than digital whiteboards with autoscroll, or most uses of powerpoint, or whatever else people try, in my experience. I wish that more lecturers would consider returning to blackboards, instead of the lazy slides they currently do. It would both improve their talks and waste less of their prep time. The nice thing about blackboards is that lecturers don’t try to write every…
It's always impressive to follow someone derive a full theory (general relativity, quantum field theory...) from the basics on the blackboard, and in the end it is off by a factor of 2 or pi, and everyone has to hunt for the place where it was misplaced - demonstrating that this was indeed a live derivation.
Re: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good portion of these points involve "integrate into the mathematical exposition methods of your time" and become useless as exposition methods change. If blackboards are supplanted by digital whiteboard that autoerase or autoscroll, exposition may different - slide techniques would be useful to include. Another portion involve the "exposition culture" - that the greatest of a given mathematician still has to inter…
> Publish the Same Result Several Times Is this not frowned upon? Serious question. Serious journals and conferences ask you to certify that you didn't publish that work elsewhere. Yes, you can work around that by doing some extra experiments/ minor tweaks/etc. so that it is "different" .. but I thought that's a sort of "tolerated cheating", not something you'd actively/publicly advise others to do.
I have a colleague who is very concerned about self-plagarism. Seriously.
An excellent example of forgetting what we are about.
Re: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good portion of these points involve "integrate into the mathematical exposition methods of your time" and become useless as exposition methods change. If blackboards are supplanted by digital whiteboard that autoerase or autoscroll, exposition may different - slide techniques would be useful to include. Another portion involve the "exposition culture" - that the greatest of a given mathematician still has to inter…
Blackboards are much better as lecture tools than digital whiteboards with autoscroll, or most uses of powerpoint, or whatever else people try, in my experience. I wish that more lecturers would consider returning to blackboards, instead of the lazy slides they currently do. It would both improve their talks and waste less of their prep time. The nice thing about blackboards is that lecturers don’t try to write every…
Blackboards are much better as lecture tools than digital whiteboards with autoscroll, or most uses of powerpoint, or whatever else people try, in my experience.
If you're down voting me for mentioning these, I have no dog in the fight. I only said that the advice was "learn your tools" - IF the tools HAPPENED to change, the advice would change. If not, sure, use a blackboard well.
Re: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good portion of these points involve "integrate into the mathematical exposition methods of your time" and become useless as exposition methods change. If blackboards are supplanted by digital whiteboard that autoerase or autoscroll, exposition may different - slide techniques would be useful to include. Another portion involve the "exposition culture" - that the greatest of a given mathematician still has to inter…
Blackboards are much better as lecture tools than digital whiteboards with autoscroll, or most uses of powerpoint, or whatever else people try, in my experience. I wish that more lecturers would consider returning to blackboards, instead of the lazy slides they currently do. It would both improve their talks and waste less of their prep time. The nice thing about blackboards is that lecturers don’t try to write every…
Agreed, the best exposition style for a digital white board is not to use it.
Re: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blackboards are much better as lecture tools than digital whiteboards with autoscroll, or most uses of powerpoint, or whatever else people try, in my experience. I wish that more lecturers would consider returning to blackboards, instead of the lazy slides they currently do. It would both improve their talks and waste less of their prep time. The nice thing about blackboards is that lecturers don’t try to write every…
Blackboards are much better as lecture tools than digital whiteboards with autoscroll, or most uses of powerpoint, or whatever else people try, in my experience. If you're down voting me for mentioning these, I have no dog in the fight. I only said that the advice was "learn your tools" - IF the tools HAPPENED to change, the advice would change. If not, sure, use a blackboard well.
No idea why people are downvoting you. My comment about blackboards is kind of a tangent.
Re: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
#17I always thought the Feynman method was "Write down the problem. Think very hard. Write down the solution."
Re: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Publish the Same Result Several Times Is this not frowned upon? Serious question. Serious journals and conferences ask you to certify that you didn't publish that work elsewhere. Yes, you can work around that by doing some extra experiments/ minor tweaks/etc. so that it is "different" .. but I thought that's a sort of "tolerated cheating", not something you'd actively/publicly advise others to do.
I have a colleague who is very concerned about self-plagarism. Seriously. An excellent example of forgetting what we are about.
Is your implication that self-plagiarism is or is not a serious problem?
Re: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Publish the Same Result Several Times Is this not frowned upon? Serious question. Serious journals and conferences ask you to certify that you didn't publish that work elsewhere. Yes, you can work around that by doing some extra experiments/ minor tweaks/etc. so that it is "different" .. but I thought that's a sort of "tolerated cheating", not something you'd actively/publicly advise others to do.
What TFA actually says is that you publish your early ideas on the result in a lower-tier journal, then both things progress side by side——as you refine your ideas, you submit to progressively more prestigious publications.
I'd compare to code that you refine over time.
Every release is worth mentioning.
Re: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]
#20I always thought the Feynman method was "Write down the problem. Think very hard. Write down the solution."
That's the Feynman Algorithm.