Hacker News Reader

God i absolutely hated this kind of "this should be obvious" statement made by professors in lectures.

It absolutely poisens the learning atmosphere. And after 20 minutes of lecturing on a difficult topic they ask if anyone has any questions and wonder why noone raises their hand or says anything.

View on HN

FWIW, at least in mathematics "obvious" doesn't mean "you're an idiot if you don't instantly understand this." It means, "this isn't deep. If you're thinking about really deep, complicated things beyond what we've been talking about, you're missing the point."

I have on multiple occasions sat down and worked with another mathematician on a problem for an hour+, only for us to find the solution and both conclude that the answer was "obvious."

As a professor in a non-math subject, I agree with this and think it generalizes. I often say "this is obvious" as a way to communicate to students "you're overthinking this like woah."

Heh. The worst I heard of was a professor (in a math class, IIRC) saying "this is obvious". A student questioned whether it was obvious. The professor looked at the board, left the room for 45 minutes (!), returned and said, "Yes, it's obvious."

Dude, if you had to think about it for 45 minutes, it's not obvious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com