AUSTIN – In an attempt to make an emotional connection with his students, mechanical engineering professor Charles Landry reached out to his class to try and understand how numbers, derivatives, and binomial grids make students feel. “Everybody is always placing so much importance on solving the equation,” said Landry. “But nobody ever asks the important questions. Like, does the number seven make your heart smile? What would a constant say if it could speak? How would a linear equation taste? These are the types of questions that we should be asking.” Charles’s final will consist of a ten-page essay in which the students will describe how the Ehrenfest theorem reflects the students’ relationships with their parents.