J. E. Littlewood Quotes on Education (3 Quotes)


    I constantly meet people who are doubtful, generally without due reason, about their potential capacity as mathematicians. The first test is whether you got anything out of geometry. To have disliked or failed to get on with other mathematical subjects need mean nothing much drill and drudgery is unavoidable before they can get started, and bad teaching can make them unintelligible even to a born mathematician.

    In presenting a mathematical argument the great thing is to give the educated reader the chance to catch on at once to the momentary point and take details for granted his successive mouthfuls should be such as can be swallowed at sight in case of accidents, or in case he wishes for once to check in detail, he should have only a clearly circumscribed little problem to solve (e.g. to check an identity two trivialities omitted can add up to an impasse). The unpractised writer, even after the dawn of a conscience, gives him no such chance before he can spot the point he has to tease his way through a maze of symbols of which not the tiniest suffix can be skipped.

    In passing, I firmly believe that research should be offset by a certain amount of teaching, if only as a change from the agony of research. The trouble, however, I freely admit, is that in practice you get either no teaching, or else far too much.


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