F'bio from Brazil interviews Don

17 December 2007: F'bio Prestes de Oliveira from Brazil purchased Don's books. He asked Don to do an email interview which is in Portuguese on a blog for students of Physics. These were the 3 questions he asked Don to respond to: 

1) You're author of very popular math books, written in a very accessible language. In your opinion, are math and science really difficult subjects, or are they difficult because the language has not been properly chosen by authors and teachers?
 
2) There is a kind of elitism haunting hard science courses, in third world countries. Many teachers think that the high failure rate is how you select "good people".  Is such phenomenon present in USA universities, even in a small degree?

3) Although popular among students, textbooks written in a conversational style are usually despised by teachers, under the excuse that such books are "too wordy". On the other hand, textbooks with poor explanations and a huge amount of formulas are not commonly criticized. In your opinion, why does it happen?

The Portuguese version is this link, but it can be translated to English

http://universitariodefisica.blogspot.com/2007/11/entrevista-com-don-cohen.html

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