Reply #11: My own sob-story anecdote, FWIW

[Orrex]

In 10th grade Geometry (which was, as taught, the most worthless course in my entire K-12 experience), I was introduced to the concept of skew lines. That is, non-coplanar lines that are not parallel and do not intersect. Intrigued, and making my first baby steps into theoretical higher-dimensional technobabble, I asked in all sincerity if you could have "skew planes" in four dimensions, since planes in three dimensions are either parallel or intersecting.

"After you've mastered three dimensions," came the answer, "ask me about four."

Way to quench the fires of curiosity. Hey, I wasn't looking to split the atom, but I thought that the question merited more than a "fuck you, wise-ass" dismissal.

Of course, that's not why I failed to achieve glory in my later mathematics courses, but I recall it with clarity to this day ~20 years hence.