/sci/ - Science & Math

>Judging by my teaching experience in France, the university students' idea of mathematics (even of those taught mathematics at the École Normale Supérieure - I feel sorry most of all for these obviously intelligent but deformed kids) is as poor as that of this pupil.
>For example, these students have never seen a paraboloid and a question on the form of the surface given by the equation xy = z2 puts the mathematicians studying at ENS into a stupor. Drawing a curve given by parametric equations (like x = t3 - 3t, y = t4 - 2t2) on a plane is a totally impossible problem for students (and, probably, even for most French professors of mathematics).