The quote came up one day in the math 110 class as the prof was fielding questions before a midterm exam. Most of the class was quite worked up about this midterm, likely having believed many of the bad stories they had heard about the marking in the math 110 class. These marking schemes could make a big difference in terms of the class averages. There were some profs who marked based only on the final answer given for a question, ignoring any method use to get there. Either the question was answered right, in which case the student got full marks, or it was dead wrong, in which case a zero was given. On the other hand, there were also profs that awarded partial marks for incorrect solutions if they used the proper processes. No one really knew where our prof fit into this scheme, and one student decided to ask. His question was whether the prof would give partial marks on the midterm. With a surprised look, the prof responded with this week's quote: "Partial marks?! That's ALL you'll get!" I couldn't have answered it better myself. And judging from the student who asked the question, that statement was probably correct, too. Which made it even more amusing. Math profs tend to have a rather negative reputation at my university, but this guy was hillarious. He later tried to convince us that the Ghosts of past math students were haunting the room. Apparently, the memory of math 110 still haunted them even after they had passed away.
The picture used for this quote shows an Abacus. These instruments are very important in terms of the history of Computers. And websites about both the history of Computers and the Abacus are great. Some people think that an Abacus is faster than a Calculator. It really depends if the Calculator has games like Tetris on it that would distract its user. In which case, the abacus might be faster, but the person with the calculator would surely have more fun. And that counts as winning in my book.
This is a quote that should have been put up long ago, but always slipped my mind when it came time to do a new quote. But now, it will finally receive the attention that it deserves. In fact, it probably deserves even more attention than it will get on this obscure webpage, but this is the best I can do for the moment. It is quite rare that a university professor comes up with a brillant line that deserves to be made into a quote of the week, but that's exactly what happened this time. In this case, the above quote came from one of my former math profs, who shall remain nameless. This prof was teaching Math 110, one of the most dreaded courses at the university. It could be considered the basic math class, dealing with introductory calculus and so forth. This course is also a requisite for almost every type of program, which means lots of people have to take it. Numerous times. That's the way it works when a class has almost a 50% failure rate. In any case, math 110 consequently had a very bad reputation. Most people who entered the class did so only with extreme trepidation. And there were rumours that some people who entered the final examination were never seen again! That's an exageration, but only slightly. Frankly, I didn't find the class too difficult at all, but that would put me in the minority. Regardless, now that I've set the scene, I'll get down to explaining this quote.
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