that’s going to leave a mark
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2007/…
The other thing that struck me in the [ recruiting ] movie [ of the small liberal arts school [ was not, I think, intended by its producers. One of the students, explaining how wonderful the school was, described it as undefinable–”like the square root of two.”The square root of two is quite easily defined–it is that number that, multiplied by itself, equals two. The correct term is “irrational,” but I don’t think that’s how he wanted to describe his college.
…but, perhaps, exactly appropriate.
The actual information conveyed by that segment was that at least one student at that college was both mathematically illiterate and mathematically pretentious, and that nobody making the movie knew enough elementary mathematics, or was paying enough attention, to do a retake with the error corrected. I don’t think that was the message that the school intended to give to potential students and their parents.
Ouch.
November 12th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
It IS a liberal arts school, after all. (Math, apparently, is not a liberal art). I think that the movie will attract exactly those types of students portrayed in the video (a little knowledge is a dangerous thing), and repel those students who can tell the difference between style and substance (and value the latter).
(must remember to tell baby brother to take college-level science and math, use this as moralistic fable)