Review of reader letters

51

In 1971, the post office delivered twice as many letters to the editorial office «Kvant» as in the previous year. Their total number in individual places reached 350 and did not fall below 250 letters per month. Of course, this is not so much, but we hope that the number of letters will increase.

The authors of the overwhelming number of letters are, as one would expect, schoolchildren, actively interspersing mathematics and physics or both sciences. Not only older classics, but also 7th and 8th grade students squeal. In task «Kvant» for younger schoolchildren, elementary school students answer. There is even a letter from the debtor, written by his father under his dictation (Seryozha Abamov from Kuibyshev).

The activity of readers is especially eloquently evidenced by the special attention they pay to the tasks placed in the magazine under the heading “Problem «Kvant».” If in the phenomenon the number of reader letters with solutions to problems from this section is, then in febrero it was already 40 percent, and in March 50, in April 60, and in subsequent months their number reached 65 percent of the total number of all letters. Let us add to what has been said that most letters contain solutions not to one, but to several problems at once, the degree of difficulty of which significantly exceeds the average. Thus, many schoolchildren using the page identify their solutions and express them clearly and originally. And these readers continue to participate in the work of this section of the magazine even after graduating from high school.

Schoolchildren who submit solutions to problems are placed in the “Problem Book” and are taught to work in science at the level available to them now.

At the reader’s conference, some readers expressed the opinion that it would be desirable to somewhat reduce the scientific level of the articles and problems published in the “Zadchnik”.

However, the majority of science-minded schoolchildren strongly object to reducing the level of difficulty of materials placed in «Kvant». For example, this is what N. Mozharovsky from Kiev wrote to us about this: “I personally really like the magazine. This, in my opinion, is the only magazine in our country that publishes articles at a fairly scientific level, intended for those who have chosen physics and mathematics as their future specialty… I am sure that only schoolchildren who almost never open textbooks and books on physics and mathematics, who solve few problems, can apply for too difficult articles. Indeed, in articles on physics one can rarely find, unfortunately, at least some kind of formula. Where can we become more popular? I want to say that I personally know 20-30 other students who share this with me 等内容…

And here is the opinion of L. Suvorova from the city of Aleksaandrovsk, a representative of other readers «Kvant» - teachers: “I have been working as a physics teacher for the 5th year. I teach elective physics classes at school. This year I am working with tenth graders. We regularly monitor all numbers «Kvant». It is the scientific nature of the journal that attracts us.” A. Kolpakov, a physics teacher from Kursk, creates with it: “With great attention and use, I use the materials from your magazine for extracurricular activities and for preparing the most difficult students for optimization. Your magazine writes a lot about the teachers and students of our school. Students share what they read in «Kvant». Here is what E. Zavyavkin from the city of Kirovo-Chepetsk wrote, for example: “…Your magazine is as good, no, as an excellent teacher and landowner. He interested me in many ways and helped me figure things out. I probably don’t express my gratitude to you in a very literary way, but that’s not the main thing… When I gave it to the kids to read, they and the teachers copied a lot of it this year. Probably, the demand for «Kvant» will grow every year.”

However, in addition to these letters, we also receive letters in which readers, not without reason, wish for an insufficiently clear understanding and the difficulty of individual articles on physics.

“My name is Turbina Galina, I study in the 9th grade of secondary school 22 in Voronezh. I got a 5 in mathematics and physics for 8th grade. But reading your magazine, I don’t understand much. Even, more precisely, in each article the physical meaning of the formulas is not clear. For example, in the 9th issue of 1971, in the article “Conversation on the Uncertainty Principle” by Azbel, it is not clear that he will read “Einstein’s theory of relativity is studied in higher education. It’s hard to believe that everyone, or at least half of the readers-students out of 200 thousand people (circulation 266,135) understood the essence of the indicated formula.”