I'm teach Proofs 101 in Fall
Farmer Ben only has ducks and cows. He can't remember how many of each he has, but he doesn't need to remember because he knows he has 22 animals and 22 is also his age. He also knows that the animals have a total of 56 legs, because 56 is also the age of his father. Assuming all the animals have the usual numbers of limbs, how many ducks and how many cows does Farmer Ben have? I adopted a liberal arts math textbook ( Crossing the River with Dogs , by Johnson, Herr and Kysh) for my Introduction to Higher Mathematics course for math majors. I love the book; it has loads of figure it out questions and great rhetoric about doing them efficiently that apply broadly to life as well as to higher mathematics. But, I think that, with the exception of those who study at Harvey Mudd College, most liberal arts math students think questions like this are contrived and silly (like, what's the guy going to do next year? Get a one legged duck?), even though the author clearly th...