an earlier beginner.....

[Kokatha man]

My partner sent me this snippet today: I have no idea whether it is true, or merely apocryphal: but thought it worth posting!


The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen:
“Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer.”
One student replied:
“You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building.”
This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.
The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer that showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.
For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought.
The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn’t make up his mind which to use. On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:
“Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g * t squared. But bad luck on the barometer.”
“Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper’s shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper.”
“But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqr root (l / g).”
“Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up.”
“If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building.”
“But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor’s door and say to him ‘If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper’.”
The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel Prize for Physics.
“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a very narrow field.” - Niels Boh

[skwinty (Steve)]

Hallooo Darryl
Very amusing story. Given my limited knowledge of the history of Niels Bohr, I would say that it is probably true

[luvmybourbon]

i always thought an expert was defined by an X= unknown factor and pert+ a drip under pressure! or perhaps i am wrong

[Ric]

Great story Darryl, I know a few physics orientated people and that would fit in with their style of humour.

Probably quite true.

Cheers

[Jeff]

Great story Darryl.
I did a Google on it and it's everywhere so must be true.

Reminds me of a smart arse answer I gave in an engineering "vibration mechanics" exam many moon ago. My answer was correct but used a very novel method to get there ... unfortunately I got zero marks, but it was fun escalating through the student union. Really made the professor sweat.

Although the professor had the last laugh...I had to resit my entire exam... properly!

Another useful exam approach I found (from Google) can be applied to more wimpy subjects like English as follows:

In an English exam I sat a few years ago while doing my VCE, we were given three pieces of writing, each with a set of questions attached. We were asked to "Choose one of the three exercises below".

While we were all sweating out pages and pages of answers, a friend of mine simply wrote "I choose number two", and did nothing for the rest of the exam. Since he had, technically, fulfilled the requirements of the paper, he had to be given full marks.

Almost all sample English VCE papers I've seen since then have the instruction "Choose and complete one of the following".

[PCH (Paul)]

Great stories Darryl and Jeff,

though I have to confess I don't think I'd have been brave enough to offer such a smartarsed answer in any of my exams - even if I were smart enough to have thought of one

Cheers,