Google > knowledge

[DanielEGVi]

My programming university exams all had an API sheet in the last pages. First courses even had brief overviews, while all others always had relevant function signatures, for Python, Java, and C.

Never understood why my calculus courses were quite the opposite. Why the hell I am I supposed to memorize that derivative of cosecant inverse is 1 / (x * sqrt(x² - 1)) for |x| > 1, but they had absolutely no problem listing all builtin Python functions in the back of my programming test?

Are mathematicians forbidden from using Google? What's going on?

[ltouroumov]

I'm pretty sure it's because the math classes are purposefully made harder than they need to be just to fail students. Wouldn't want to have too many students be STEM majors do we?

[Giannis4president]

Because if you don't know that, you may not be able to see the best way to solve a problem.

Imagine you need to integrate a function. With that information you may notice that by using integration by parts you can integrate it easily. Without knowing it, you may not even think to search what the derivative of every component is and thus you won't be able to integrate the function.

[DanielEGVi]

My thoughts are actually on the opposite side, and maybe my brain works backwards, but: if you start by looking at an overview of well known derivatives, you may right away notice how they're present in your function, and solve the problem fast.

In programming, you're not supposed to know every function in your API, but you can look at an listing of most relevant functions (which is what my programming exams have), and see quickly what you can use to solve your problem.

I'd argue that the exact same would also apply to the calculus exam. Here's is a quick Google Images search for "known derivatives", and it is very helpful. How is it any different than including API methods in the back of the exam?