Are all math professors conceited bigots?

[NeoDevin]

Yes, it is easy to consult various books. But it is still better to have the course covered completely in one book.

 

[NeoDevin]

Also, so you know where I'm coming from, my experience with math courses is limited to the basics: the entire calc/analysis stream, ODE's, PDE's, linear algebra stream, intro group theory, intro ring theory. Most of the calc stream was actually done from prof's notes, which were comparable to, or better than (for the first year course, much better than) any of the textbooks I've read on the subjects. I don't have any experience with the more obscure math courses where the material may not be adequately covered by a textbook, and may not be standard from one institution to the next.

 

[Proton Soup]

that reminds me. once had an english teacher that took fair use to mean you could copy a chapter from a book. he copied one chapter from several books to make one complete book that he distributed through Kinko's. turned out to be the only english teacher worth a darn, too. go figure.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

I don't have any experience with the more obscure math courses where the material may not be adequately covered by a textbook, and may not be standard from one institution to the next.

I certainly think that for really obscure stuff like that it might make sense for the whole course to be based on the professor's book. All the other topics, though, have more than a hundred years' worth of textbooks out there devoted to them so I have a hard time with the idea of professors putting their notes into a book and charging people for it who are already paying a substantial figure to be taught by them.

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[NeoDevin]

Here's an example of my first year honours calc text: http://www.math.uAlberta.ca/~bowman/m117/m117.pdf

Though it has been updated since I took the course.

Edit: I found it much easier to read and follow than Stewart's, or any other intro calculus text I have seen (a few, but I don't remember the names off hand). I still refer to it on occasion if I forget something basic (the hyperlinked table of contents is much better than flipping through books).

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Honors, huh? You are quite possibly smarter than me, if you're looking for me to say that for some reason. I was by no means an honor student. And the school I attended was a liberal arts college if that makes you feel better, though the math department was fairly heavy duty.

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[NeoDevin]

No, I wasn't looking for that, I was just mentioning that to differentiate it from the general calculus stream. It's the more proof/theory based course (as in, we proved much of the course on assignments). Honours refers to the level of the course, rather than the mark I got in it (perfect score, if you're interested).

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Another thing is, that booklet you link to is freely distributable for nonprofit, educational use. That's exactly what I'm saying professors should do.

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[NeoDevin]

Yes, but even if he bound and published it, and sold it for profit, I would still prefer it over Stewart's or any of the other `standard' intro books.

Edit: Also, it was just one example, from an amazing prof, I do recognize that not all profs are as good as him (maybe none), but it makes the case that instructor prepared materials are not always inferior to externally produced ones.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Yes, but even if he bound and published it, and sold it for profit, I would still prefer it over Stewart's or any of the other `standard' intro books.

Well, of course, if it's really that good it's probably something that would sell on its own. If you have the sort of professor who is writing better stuff than any of the textbooks on the market, I can see why you'd be in favor of it. This just has never been my experience. It seems to me that lots of professors think they're much more deft authors than they actually are.

Edit: Yes, I agree that some people can be superior writers, for sure. It's just that in a topic like calculus I think they need to be better than about three hundred years' worth of textbooks to justify writing something and asking the students to pay for it.

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[NeoDevin]

In the end only the instructor knows how they will teach the course, and which book will fit better with their style of teaching/the topics they will cover. Barring the case where they are deliberately choosing their own book for the profit margin (which on a per book basis is fairly small, and so I don't think this is as big a problem as you seem to), if they choose their own book, and it's not a good choice for the course, what makes you think that any other book they chose would be any better?

Put another way, if they make a bad choice by choosing their own book, they'll probably make a bad choice with any other book they choose, simply because they're a bad teacher.

Edit: There are more than enough bad textbooks out there for them to choose from, if they can't recognize that their own is bad, they won't recognize that any others are bad.

 

[NeoDevin]

Also, sometimes it is just a difference in learning style. If a prof chooses/writes a book that he thinks is good, it may very well be an excellent book for someone who shares his learning style. If you learn better from a different presentation, it probably won't work for you.
I don't think anyone ever wrote a textbook that they thought was worse than the currently available ones. They write it to address some deficiency they see in the available ones, which you may not even see as a deficiency.

 

[Shackleford]

Picture this ,Sam at the star gate, she solves a problem in seconds, that is so not real. anyone that can come close to sam will be hailed as a genius.

Hey, I like Stargate. Though, they do make the occasional physics error.

 

[NeoDevin]

Hey, I like Stargate. Though, they do make the occasional physics error.

I like stargate too, but it seems to me that it's one big physics error.

 

[Topher925]

I like stargate too, but it seems to me that it's one big physics error.

Its called science fiction for a reason. There are a lot of things in that show that defy the laws of physics but your complain is about Sam of all things?

 

[Shackleford]

Its called science fiction for a reason. There are a lot of things in that show that defy the laws of physics but your complain is about Sam of all things?

They get SOME stuff right. lol.

Some of the Atlantis chick cameos are nice, though. Heh.