The Buddha told his disciples, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your… - Richard Hamming

Vicarious learning from the experiences of others saves making errors yourself, but I regard the study of successes as being basically more important than the study of failures. There are so many ways of being wrong and so few of being right, studying successes is more efficient.

You must learn to walk before you run in this matter of being creative, but I believe it can be done. Furthermore, if you are to succeed (to the extent you secretly wish to), you must become creative in the face of the rapidly changing technology which will dominate your career. Society will not stand still for you; it will evolve more and more rapidly as technology plays an increasing role at all levels of the organization. My job is to make you one of the leaders in this changing world, not a follower, and I am trying my best to alter you, especially in getting you to take charge of yourself and not to depend on others, such as me, to help.

The methods of mathematics are the main topic of the course, not a long list of finished mathematical results with such highly polished proofs that the poor student can only marvel at the results, with no hope of understanding how mathematics is actually created by practicing mathematicians.