The Conic Sections Rebellion, also known as the Conic Section Rebellion, refers primarily to an incident which occurred at Yale University in 1830,[1] as a result of changes in the methods of mathematics education.
[2] 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.
Thirty-eight students out of a class of eighty-seven, including Horace Bushnell, William H. Welch, Henry Hogeboom, and William Adams, were suspended; faculty contacted the students' parents, and the students were pressured into signing a statement of concession: We, the undersigned, having been led into a course of opposition to the government of Yale College, do acknowledge our fault in this resistance, and promise, on being restored to our standing in the class, to yield a faithful obedience to the laws (of Yale College).Prior to the introduction of blackboards, Yale students had been allowed to consult diagrams in their textbooks when solving geometry problems pertaining to conic sections – even on exams.
When the students were no longer allowed to consult the text, but were instead required to draw their own diagrams on the blackboard, they refused to take the final exam.
As a result, forty-three of the ninety-six students – among them, Alfred Stillé,[4] and Andrew Calhoun, the son of John C. Calhoun[5] – were summarily expelled, and Yale authorities warned neighboring universities against admitting them.