ot, of course, but this discussion with the many possibilities to solve
something reminds me of this story:
Free vs. Pedantic Thinking
Some time ago I received a call from a colleague who asked if I would be
the referee on the grading of an examination question. He was about to
give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the
student claimed he should receive a perfect score and would if the
system were not set up against the student. The instructor and the
student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.
I went to my colleague's office and read the examination question: 'Show
how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the
aid of a barometer.'
The student had answered: 'Take the barometer to the top of the
building, attach a long rope to it, lower the barometer to the street,
and then bring it up, measuring the length of rope. The length of the
rope is the height of the building.'
I pointed out that the student really had a strong case for full credit,
since he had answered the question completely and correctly. On the
other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a
high grade for the student in his physics course. A high grade is
supposed to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not
confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try at answering
the question. I was not surprised that my colleague agreed, but I was
surprised that the student did.
I gave the student six minutes to answer the question, with the warning
that his answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of
five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give
up, but he said no. He had many answers to the problem; he was just
thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him, and
asked him to please go on. In the next minute he dashed off his answer
which read:
'Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of
the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then,
using the formula S = at2/2, calculate the height of the building.'
At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded,
and I gave the student almost full credit.
On leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said
he had other answers to the problem so I asked him what they were. 'Oh,
yes' said the student. 'There are many ways of getting the height of a
tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take
the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the
barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the
building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of
the building.'
'Fine' I said. 'And the others?'
'Yes' said the student. 'There is a very basic measurement method that
you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk
up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the
barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this
will give the height of the building in barometer units. A very direct
method.
'Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the
barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine
the value of 'g' at the street level and at the top of the building.
From the difference between the two values of 'g', the height of the
building can, in principle, be calculated.
'Finally,' he concluded 'there are many other ways of solving the
problem. Probably the best' he said 'is to take the barometer to the
basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent
answers, you speak to him as follows: "Mr Superintendent, here I have a
fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of this building, I will
give you this barometer."'
"At this point, I asked the student if he really didn't know the answer
to the problem. He admitted that he did, but that he was so fed up with
college instructors trying to teach him how to think and to use critical
thinking, instead of showing him the structure of the subject matter,
that he decided to take off on what he regarded mostly as a sham."
Am 18.11.2014 um 04:28 schrieb Bruce Momjian:
On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 05:39:38PM -0500, Richard Heck wrote:
On 11/17/2014 04:57 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 04:41:37PM -0500, Scott Kostyshak wrote:
On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 3:44 PM, Bruce Momjian <br...@momjian.us> wrote:
I know I can use Insert/File/Child Document to insert a LyX document
into an existing LyX document. Is there any way to _conditionally_
include the document based on a TeX define, e.g.:
\ifx \employer \include{/presentations/employer/head_bumper} \fi
but if you put this in a TeX red block, it doesn't work as \include must
be processed by LyX.
I would like to do this so I can define a TeX variable in my LaTeX
preamble and have it control the addition of slides.
Would a branch do what you want?
Yeah, thank you. While I don't know how to activate/deactivate the
branch based on a define, it does give me a simple way to turn stuff
on/off. I have been with LyX for 15 years and it never ceases to amaze
me.
There are some other options. The simplest is to do it this way:
PUT IN ERT: \ifx\employer\undefined\relax\else[\ERT]
...now enter a LyX include box...or any other LyX content...
PUT IN ERT: \fi
This is an extremely powerful construct.
Thanks, that worked perfectly. Now a single preamble lines controls
everything.
(Wolfgang)
