On Tue, 2007-10-07 at 20:59 +0100, Andrew Coppin wrote:

But it rambled on for, like, 3 pagefulls of completely opaque 
set-theoretic gibberish before I arrived at the (cryptically phrased) 
statements I presented above. Why it didn't just *say* that in the first 
place I have no idea...

Because the overwhelming majority of people who teach math know math well, but do not know teaching well. Sadly it would be better for all but the highest levels of education to have that reversed. My own long-standing, deep distaste for the "chicken scratchings" of the pure maths stems from incredibly smart teachers who had no idea how to communicate what they knew to those not already there.

--
Michael T. Richter <ttmrichter@gmail.com> (GoogleTalk: ttmrichter@gmail.com)
We should sell bloat credits, the way the government sells pollution credits. Everybody's assigned a certain amount of bloat, and if they go over, they have to purchase bloat credits from some other group that's been more careful. (Bent Hagemark)