🚀 go-pugleaf

 In article <74...@pt.cs.cmu.edu> you write:
>The teacher would, as a "joke", pose certain unsolved problems 
>in exams and homework problem sets.
>The first time he did this, he asked if anyone had any luck with
>these problems.  
>Before he could say that these were unsolved,
>a certain quiet person in the back said,
>"Well, I got the first four but the fifth I'm not sure about."
>All five were previously unsolved problems...

I had a college instructor who delighted in throwing out these types of
question.  I think he felt like he was showing his smarts.  The problem I
had with this was that I didn't realize until near the end of the semester
that he was pulling this kind of gag.  What got me hacked was that, IMHO,
he was wrong in doing so, in that his questions were phrased

"Prove that ........"

If it had been phrased as

"Prove or disprove......"

I would have felt the question a bit more fair.
I caught on too late to get my grade up.
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-     bobc@attctc                     Your humble servant (real humble)       -
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