Re: barometer parable

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

"Paul O. Johnson" wrote:
> I think there are six or seven answers to Herb's question. Another one is to
> drop the barometer from the top of the building and time its fall. I can't
> remember all the other methods.

It's not necessary to remember.
 1) You could look it up.
    http://www.google.com/search?q=barometer+building

 2) Talking about the answers per se misses the point.
    http://snopes2.com/college/exam/barometr.htm
    http://www.rbs0.com/baromete.htm


There is some ambiguity about the point of Calandra's parable:

-- Some people read the story and are outraged at the perversity
of the student.  The reference to Scholasticism (in the last
sentence of the Saturday Review version) brings to mind medieval
chop-logic.  The title ("Angels on the Head of a Pin") suggests
the same thing.  We see that some of the suggested "measurements"
are perverse and idiotic.

-- OTOH, except for the title and the last sentence, the narrator
seems to be rooting for the student... advocating out-of-the-box
thinking (on the part of the student) and tolerance (on the part of
the professor).  We see that some of the eccentric "measurements"
would work, and might work better than the conventional one.

====

At one extreme we have perversity, which is bad;  at the other
extreme we have creativity, which is good.  I suppose there is
no clear dividing line.  But it is safe to say that in general,
the world needs more unconventional thinkers, not less.  Within
wide limits, students should be rewarded, not punished, for
eccentric-but-correct answers.

It is amazing how many students finish their schooling having no
idea what a brainstorming session is, and being almost unable to
imagine generating multitudinous different answers to the same question.

The barometer parable could be used as the lead-in to a classroom
exercise in brainstorming:  how many different solutions can the
group come up with?  How do they compare as to cost?  What about
accuracy?  What are the sources of systematic error?  If done right,
this could be highly entertaining as well as educational.

  http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0106&L=phys-l&P=R17462