RT Journal Article ID 157f91122ca3aa00 A1 Malinetskii, G. G. T1 Problems in a Course of Nonlinear Science JF International Journal of Fluid Mechanics Research JO FMR YR 1995 FD 1995-12-01 VO 22 IS 5-6 SP 176 OP 218 AB Mathematical problems, are assigned a place of paramount importance in high school as a tool for the development of thinking. The problems that were carefully selected in the course of the past two millennia were highly instrumental in developing the ability of logical deliberation, intuition and common sense.
The importance of problems is not diminished on the university level. However, their role here is different. A professional differs from an amateur, among others, by the former's understanding of the limits of his expertise. It is imperative that a specialist be able to distinguish between elementary problems, or problems that have already been solved and those in his field that still require solution. The simplest method to become versant in what "is inconvenient not to know" is to suggest a specially selected set of problems. These problems should be surprising and interesting and their solution should require a certain intellectual effort rather than elementary application of familiar theorems and methods, but at the same time be within the ability of the student.
In addition, problems allow avoiding a rather frequent situation which was aphoristically formulated by one of my students: "When you are explaining, everything is clear, when you start asking everything is incomprehensible".
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