Lincoln Chayes=worst professor at UCLA (more valuable than any equation he ever "teaches" you).
Now I will prove the equation (like he does for any equation brought up in class)
The 1st thing Chayes did was write a scribble on the board. He then said this is his email with the message being that he never answers email so don't bother contacting him. Also, the first time someone asked a question he responded by attacking the person and asking how he could ask something that dumb. This is how he responds to all questions and understandably many stopped asking.
Chayes lectures are completely useless. His class is based on homework which are not based on lecture or the book, are made up by Chayes, and extremely hard. This makes it that the homework can't be looked up online and the only way to get it right is to have a good TA, tutor, or already know the curriculum before entering the class. His lectures are funny since he is so creepy and weird that everything he does is hilarious. This is a guy who wears the same pair of clothes(with the same chalk stains) each day. If you don't care about grades and want a funny lecture take Chayes but if you want/need to learn 32A and want good grades DON'T take him.
The number one reason why you shouldn't take him is that 32a is supposed to be a relatively easier lower division course but Chayes makes it as hard as an upper division course. He even admits that his course is much harder than other lectures. He claims that his saving grace is that he gives more A's, which may or may not be true, but what he doesn't say is that he also gives much more bad grades than the other lectures.
I think this proves what I'll call the Lincoln theorem which is that no smart student should take Chayes if they can avoid it because he is the worst professor at UCLA.
P.S.: for those who don't know the review below this one is sarcastic because they signed off with Kappa so don't be trolled.

This professor is the best professor I ever had in my life. He is so passionate in how he teaches during lecture. I love how he makes the whole lecture hall laugh out loud with his jokes even though it's a dry subject of math.

I have never loved math as much as I did with this professor.

His problem sets are incredibly easy, and his midterms are verbatim the problem sets. I have no idea what the other reviews are talking about, maybe he changed over the years.

There are 2 midterms and 1 final. The first two had 15 point buffers where you cap out at 100 points, but you still have 115 points to score out of.

I got a 100% on the first midterm, 100% on the second midterm, and have not taken the final yet. I don't know why we even needed the 15 point buffers, to be honest. I'm sure the final will be as easy as the midterms as well though.

Take Lincoln Chayes, he is the best math professor out of the entire math department. Forget Terrence Tao, Chayes is where it's at.

Kappa.

He is absolutely the worst professor out there. Terrible lecturer and his exams and homeworks are unnecessarily hard.

Do not take his class.

By no means is Professor Chayes anybody's first choice when it comes to taking 32A. However, my personal experience in his class was a positive one. Chayes is really not as bad as everybody says. There's a whole bunch of good information in some other evaluations, but I figure I can contribute by saying what will help you succeed in this class.

To start, I would say there were three groups of people in my lecture. 1) Those who were smart in high school, consider themselves comfortable with math, but too smart to show up to lecture or discussion and study hard, 2) those who only care about getting a good grade, may or may not be comfortable with math, but don't really care about understanding the material, and 3) those who actually try to understand the material and study hard. If you think you may lie in the first two groups (you don't like going to discussion or lecture, don't really care about understanding the material), you can still get an A, but you'll hate Chayes. However, if you actually try to understand the material (namely, the homework sets) and come to lecture with an open mind, you'll earn yourself an easy A.

Chayes, in my opinion, is a good lecturer, but not necessarily a good teacher. He plans out his lectures, and they are fairly organized. You'll go over a couple proofs per week, and it's important to go to lecture as he lectures about topics that are not covered in the textbook. Although this may sound terrible, it isn't that bad, and the things he covers outside the book are good applications of the material you learn. You don't really need a textbook, although it can be helpful to clear up some topics that were unclear in lecture.

The homework sets were fairly difficult, with usually one to three problems labeled (HARD) or (VERY HARD). For these, you'll probably need to go to discussion. Some of these problems are worded oddly and are unclear, and so they can be quite unintuitive. However, just by going to discussion (even with a bad TA) you should be able to make your way through the homework each week.

The midterms were just like the homework. To study for this class, all I did was rework the harder homework problems and rework the first and second midterms in preparation for the final. By doing this, you shouldn't just be memorizing steps, you should be understanding why you took them and what the question was actually asking. The homework problems are actually very interesting and well-designed such that they require you to understand what you're actually doing (unless you're just copying from discussion). That was the only work I put into this class: doing the homework, understanding the homework, and reworking the homework and midterms. I got a 97 on the first midterm, a 100 on the second midterm, and a 97 on the final. The averages were 77, 90, and 74, respectively. All of the tests have a kind of built-in curve: usually something like a possible 15-25 extra points possible (meaning you can miss 15-25 points and still earn a 100 on the exam).

Many people did very well in this class, and if you work to understand the material and homework, you'll find yourself with an easy A.

Shit teacher, crazy smart.

Avoid at all costs.

You can tell that Chayes is a mathematical genius. The problem is that he just can't teach anything from his vast reserves of knowledge. His lectures, for the most part, are disorganized and incomprehensible; they usually involve a long-winded written proof spanning across several boards and an explanation that only someone well-versed in the topic can understand. He rarely tells you what he's covering on a given day. No titles, no book chapters, nothing. You'll have to guess what topic it is halfway through his explanation, and then he'll cut to something else mid-lecture. In the end none of it helps you to solve his problem sets. Basically, don't expect to understand his lectures unless you've thoroughly read the relevant textbook sections and/or watched another professor's lectures (on BruinCast, MIT OCW, etc).

The homework is similarly incomprehensible at first but doable once you get used to his style. (Yes, he writes his own problem sets and ignores the book. No solutions will ever be posted, so just come up with something and hope it's right.) Like the lectures, many of the problems involve proofs, some of which are the straightforward rearrange-the-variables type, and others which even the TAs struggle to solve. On top of that, Chayes often doesn't finalize the homework until midweek, which means you either get 2 or 3 days to finish, or start early and waste your time on the "preliminary" problems, many of which will be deleted or altered in the final posting. You could argue that it's good practice, but some of the problems are convoluted and irrelevant enough that there's just no point in doing them. Save yourself the stress, make sure you work in groups, and go to the TA whenever you're stuck. If you have a good TA, discussions are really, really worth attending.

While the midterms almost copy the homework problems verbatim (so if you don't actually get it, you can at least memorize the solutions), the final has unique problems that combine multiple concepts, and is probably designed to standardize the grade distribution. Know your stuff by week 10 or get rekt.

I skipped class after the first few weeks, only showing up on Fridays to turn in the homework. Still the same incomprehensible proofs right up to the end. I got an A- overall, but I'd chalk that up to self/group studying and my own problem solving skills rather than Chayes' lectures. Come in with a solid math foundation and good study habits if you want to ace this class, because you'll essentially be self-studying. Otherwise, find another professor or even wait a quarter if everything's filled up.

想在这门课上拿到A一定要数学基础好，有时候也得跟人家一起复习。功课挺费时间的，建议找TA或同学帮忙解答。

Chayes is the hardest professor I've had at UCLA. The class I was in started with 210 students and by the end of the quarter, 70 people had dropped. I got an F on the first midterm but I decided to stick with it. I found people who were smarter than me to study/do the homework with, and ended up getting a B on the second midterm. Everyone else did great however, the median score on the second midterm was around an A-. So to do really well in this class is possible, Chayes has gotten in trouble with admin before for giving out too many As. Also he says the second midterm is the hardest of the three exams, but based on class scores, the opposite was true. The final ended up being the hardest and I got another F lol. Overall I ended up getting a D-, but chayes rounded it up to a C- for me, even though he was adamant about never curving so I am pretty happy about that. If you know how to do the homework, you can do really well in this class. My problem was that I couldn't do the homework.

The people I did the homework with all got As in the class, yet it took us 20 hours average each week to do the problem sets. Chayes bragged about how some of the problems are so difficult that the TAs couldn't solve them. This is true for my TA, he would start doing a homework problem in discussion then just give up halfway through. If you have bad TA, ask around to find out if there is a better TA and go to there discussion if you need to. The homework was due on a weekly basis, but there were many times that Chayes would not finalize the homework until two days before it was due which was incredibly frustrating for when I had other homework due and wanted to get math out of the way.

The lectures are actually useful to go to, don't miss them. He spends alot of time doing proofs that are completely useless to the class, but you have to discern what is important and what is not. He is sometimes a little bit funny and it was easy to pay attention when he was lecturing on something useful.

Of course this class could end up being as easy for you as the people below me, but don't take your chances. It's only my first quarter so I don't really know how he compares to other professors, but from what I've heard, if you can pass this class, you can pass any class at UCLA. All I can say is I hope I don't get proven wrong.

He was completely different from the reviews. He is probably the easiest math professor because his tests are so easy.He is also really funny and wears the same outfit. I am not a genius and I got a 100% in his class without much effort. Just go to his and ta office hours for homework help.

Honestly a pretty good professor.

Do your homework, pay attention, go to discussion, and you'll be fine.

Lots of people did poorly in this class I think because they go in with a negative mindset ("omg he's such a hard professor, I'm gonna fail!") and they create problems for themselves in their mind that don't actually exist.

I got an A and didn't struggle much at all during this course. Just stay positive, fam

说这教授差的都是没脑的吧？

Don't equate your own stupidity as the ineffectiveness of the professor.

There's nothing wrong with Chayes, and only little wusses would say otherwise.