Should they stop teaching cross products as determinants? Whose dumb ass idea was that anyway?

We were doing gyroscopes this week in class, no one knows what the frak a cross product really is, and they have no intuition for things like i x j = k and j x i = -k.

Or what bothers me the most is if they wanted to do something like...

(3i + 2j) x (5i + 6k)

They stick that into a determinant instead of treating it like a product and distributing. Is it just me being particular or is that an incredibly inefficient thing to do?

So is linear algebra a prerequisite for this class or what?

No! They don't even know what a determinant is either. xD They just know an algorithm for evaluating them.

oh dear lord, that makes your job like a hundred times harder, like me trying to understand quantum mechanics before I took abstract algebra

Pretty much every physics person does too, it is completely absurd. I think physics departments really need to start making abstract algebra a required course for physics majors. It is never taught and then at some point in your graduate career you are expected to be a group theory expert. It is really bizarre.

@KaliKali: honestly, I could not solve the simplest of these equations anymore. The idea of ijk is firmly entrenched but so much is gone. Never had any use for it. The more complicated math becomes, the fewer people there are that can grasp the meaning of it. You may be mortified to know that the idea of even simple trigonometry eludes the majority of people. Linear algebra, tensor calculus, differential equations, Laplace and z transforms... Very few need to know that stuff for daily living. As more of it becomes canned into programs even fewer will need to become well versed in it. Eventually, we will be back to bronze age technology.