原创 Teaching an old dog (me) new tricks

Do you recall my blog from a couple of weeks ago in which I posed three puzzles for us to ponder? One involved a horizontally-mounted cylindrical gasoline (petrol) tank on a tractor-trailer (truck). Assuming the fuel gauge is broken and you are using a stick so see how much fuel you have left, it would be easy to place full and 1/2 full marks on the stick, but where would you place the 1/4 and 3/4 full marks?

It may be that this could be solved using geometry, but in my heart of hearts I'm sure calculus will come into play before I'm very much older. When I was at college 30+ years ago I could have done this in the shower whilst hopping up and down on one leg with one arm tied behind my back and whistling "Dixie" (if you see what I mean). Now I don't have a clue. Bummer!

But all is not lost, because I recently received a catalog from a company called The Great Courses (www.TheGreatCourses.co.uk in the United Kingdom; www.TheGreatCourses.com.au in Australia; and www.TheGreatCourses.com in the USA and other countries). Each course comprises a bunch of DVDs containing anywhere from 24 to 48 lectures, where each lecture is 30-minutes or 45-minute in length. I've seen these catalogs before, but I've never taken the plunge (I don't know how they got my name, but it's nice that they keep on thinking about me). In the blurb in the catalog they say:

These are college-level courses taught by only the most engaging professors that universities like Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Vanderbilt, and Georgetown have to offer.

We identify the top 1% of college professors based on teaching awards, published evaluations, newspaper write-ups, and other sources. Only those professors who score highly on customers' review of auditions are chosen for The Great Courses.

Our courses are not merely recorded – they are crafted, designed from beginning to end to meet the needs of lifelong learners like you.

The proof of these claims is in each of our courses. We asked an independent company to survey 3,600 of our customers and ask them to rate our courses on a 10-point customer satisfaction scale, with 10 being "extremely satisfied." The average score? An 8.97 out of 10.

Most publishing companies don't guarantee their work. We do. Every Great Course comes with our Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee. If a course is anything short of completely satisfying, you can return it for another course or for a full refund. No questions asked.

You must admit that this sounds rather good. Of course, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating," as the old saying goes. Also I was tempted by the fact that there's currently a sale on (I can't resist a bargain), so I ordered three courses to see for myself...

#1 The Joy of Mathematics

24 Lectures (30 Minutes/Lecture)

Sale price $39.95 (Regular price $254.95)

#2 Change and Motion: Calculus Made Clear

24 Lectures (30 Minutes/Lecture)

Sale price $39.95 (Regular price $254.95)

#3 The Story of Human Language

36 Lectures (30 Minutes/Lecture)

Sale price $54.95 (Regular price $374.95)

They arrived recenty and I cannot wait to dive into the fray with gusto and abandon. The great thing is that I can do this while sitting in the family room with my wife and son. They can be watching TV (wrestling and monster trucks for my wife and some sloppy ladies channel for my son... or maybe it's the other way around) and I can be reveling in my Great Courses DVDs on my computer while wearing headphones.

I shall report back in detail after I've viewed each course ... watch this space!