I have often heard the expression “It’s Obvious”, and over the years, I have thought about what it meant. I finally tried to organize those thoughts and wrote a short article about it.
There is a famous joke among mathematicians. During a math class, the prof was presenting a proof of a theorem. At certain point, he said: "It is obvious that xxxx leads to yyyy". And he stand there, stare at the blackboard for a while, And then walk out of the room, and walk the hall, pondering on the problem. Half an hour later, he came back to the classroom, and said:" Yes, it is obvious."
I pulled a dirty trick with this too. In an exam, I could figure out how to proof a statement, and I have very little time left. So I wrote "It is obvious that something something is true.", hoping at it is obvious to the prof. Of course it was not, and I was call in to explain it. But by that time, I have already figured out why it was obvious. Phew...
There is a famous joke among mathematicians. During a math class, the prof was presenting a proof of a theorem. At certain point, he said: "It is obvious that xxxx leads to yyyy". And he stand there, stare at the blackboard for a while, And then walk out of the room, and walk the hall, pondering on the problem. Half an hour later, he came back to the classroom, and said:" Yes, it is obvious."
ReplyDeleteI pulled a dirty trick with this too. In an exam, I could figure out how to proof a statement, and I have very little time left. So I wrote "It is obvious that something something is true.", hoping at it is obvious to the prof. Of course it was not, and I was call in to explain it. But by that time, I have already figured out why it was obvious. Phew...