September 11th, 2007

The wisdom of seventh graders: A Wrinkle in Time

The recent passing of Madeleine L’Engle reminded me of a quiz seventh grade students were given in order to see whether they were at least paying attention during a reading of a chapter from A Wrinkle in Time. I forget the question exactly, but it asked the students about the mechanism that Mrs Who, Which and Whatsit use to travel through the universe. The correct answer was “The fifth dimension.” One student, who was apparently was paying only part attention during class, wrote “The third dimension.”

Let’s run down the street. “Woo! I’m travelling through the third dimension!”

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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