Conic Sections Rebellion (original) (raw)

The Conic Sections Rebellion, also known as the Conic Section Rebellion, refers primarily to an incident which occurred at Yale University in 1830, as a result of changes in the methods of mathematics education. When a policy change dictated that students were required to draw reference diagrams for exams rather than be allowed to refer to diagrams in their textbooks, a number of students staged a rebellion in which they refused to take the exams at all. A precursor incident occurred in 1825; historian Clarence Deming described the 1830 incident as being "much more serious", and stated that the two incidents should be "sharply demarcated".