06-16-2008, 07:18 PM
Hardest class ever?
Wallpaper Patterns.
Alright, so it was actually called "Mathematical Patterns and Transformations," but everyone just called it Wallpaper Patterns.
It was an experimental honors math class that I took last year. The school wasn't sure if they wanted to adopt it, so the professor got permission to hold a class of about 15 students and use us as guinea pigs. He wrote the textbook himself and controlled all the material, so it was insane.
The entire class dealt with the identification of patterns and how to create their individual parts - Rotations, transformations, repetitions, etc. We'd get a piece of paper with a certain pattern on it, like a row of L's across a horizontal line, and a row of upside-down L's underneath it, repeated over and over again down the page. We'd have to identify what kind of pattern it was (there were at least 60 different types we had to memorize), explain why this was so, then make adjustments to turn it into a different kind of pattern. We would also be given an incomplete pattern and be told to fill in the remaining elements that would make it a certain type.
It was insane.
And the most frustrating thing is that the school decided they wouldn't fund the class, so it hasn't been offered since then. (If you have to suffer, it's at least comforting to know that other people are suffering too!)
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