🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec15.151923.5433@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>,
mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) says:
>
>In article <1992Dec14.004705.1811@moksha.uucp> mgb@moksha.uucp (Michael       )
>Branton
>writes:
>>I would agree that physicists could teach calculus and algebra. "As well as
>>any mathematician could..." is, of course, a statement whose truth relies at
>>least upon what concepts and viewpoint is desired.
........................................
>                     Every physicist worthy of the name knows these
>subjects at least as well as most mathematicians.  Since the math
>departments don't guarantee that these courses will be taught by experts
>(only that they will be taught by departmental staff), I don't see what
>we would lose by having physicists teach them.
.........................................
>     Physicists already teach advanced mathematics courses.  (These
>courses are often either called "mathematical physics" or they are
>disguised as "advanced classical mechanics" or "general relativity" or
>something like that.)
.........................................

[The above quotes ripped, bruised and bleeding, out of context.]
    It is rather pointless to argue based upon reason and logic.  We are,
after all, discussing universities.  Politics, by whatever euphemism you
may wish to call it, has a great deal to do with who teaches what.  If
the physics department teaches calculus, what are the mathematicians
going to do?  Teach a duplicate course?  I doubt it.  (And it is
very difficult to convince a cost-conscious administration that the
calculus course taught in physics is really different from the course
with a similar syllabus in mathematics.)
    In fact, "who teaches what" is often determined by the outcome of
fairly bloody turf battles.  The motivation is, of course, that if
somebody else starts teaching Chem. Eng., I'm out of a job.  So I will
be rather sensitive to the subject matter taught in courses in other
departments.  (Which is the reason that advanced math. taught in physics
is called "Underwater Basket Weaving and Applied Analysis",  or some other
misleading title.)
    And as to which professor teaches a given course, we again must consider
other factors.  Professor X is an excellent teacher, who has kept up with
the cutting edge of his topic.  Professor Y hasn't opened a journal in 35
years.  You have to staff a beginning calculus service course, and an
advanced graduate course for your own majors.  What do you do?  (Why, of
course you do.  Wouldn't anybody?)
    It is very difficult to understand any complex system unless you
identify the actual causitive factors.
======================================================================
J. C. Hassler          Dept. of Chem Eng.        U of Maine