<p>Re the difficulty of Caltech: I like Sandra Tsing Loh’s comments about the problem that Descartes supposedly spent 37 years working on without success, from her Caltech commencement speech:</p>
<p>[Caltech</a> Commencement](<a href=“http://commencement.caltech.edu/05/loh_speech.html]Caltech”>http://commencement.caltech.edu/05/loh_speech.html)</p>
<p>I know two really smart, really successful scientists who failed calculus at Caltech, the first time around. That was a long time ago, and I think that Caltech has adopted a “kinder, gentler” grading system–but it’s still no one’s idea of generous. </p>
<p>Even if sic<em>infit is now working at JPL, I have a really hard time believing that he/she has never encountered a math problem that required an unattainably high level of thinking. If that has never happened, sic</em>infit needs to read more ambitiously.</p>