A good-humored hum runs through the room. You always prefer pi. Forty minutes into the class, the students' silence turns to restless shifting in seats, shuffling feet, rustling paper. Bill's is the only voice. Then Bill writes an equation on the board and stands back and looks at it in seeming astonishment.
More students begin volunteering observations.
One calls out an answer he has produced on his programmable calculator. Bill answers questions about the day's homework, the hour ends, and the students shuffle out of the small classroom. The students in this section of 125A, accelerated calculus, are some of the brightest he's ever had, Bill says, walking briskly to his office after class. Dan Madden, the math department calculus czar, agrees. Students today, growing up with television, have a hard time paying attention for 15 minutes, Dan says, let alone 15 weeks.