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ABSTRACT: The Phys-L discussion list has recently resurrected the
"Old Barometer Story" (OBS) with a 7-post thread titled "Tower height
joke." As is typical of discussion lists, the subject is treated de
novo, even though it's previously been discussed ad nauseam on the
same list - in this case in the 100 or so OBS posts on Phys-L dating
from 1996. One of the recent Phys-L posts quotes Alexander
Callandra's 1968 "Saturday Review" version of the OBL, and with its
diatribe on the evils of the 1960's "new math," and suggests that
physics education researchers should take note. But there's nothing
worth noting in Callendra's vacuous screed (or was it the Saturday
Review editor's screed,) How long will it be before an OBS story
with an "anti-new-new-math" (i.e., "anti-fuzzy-math") message appears
at the Mathematically Correct website
<http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/>?
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The Phys-L archives <https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/archives> for
September 2007 carry a 7-post (as of 10 Sep 2007 09:28:00-0700)
thread titled "[Phys-l] Tower height joke. Was: Re: [tap-l]
Achromatic pairs - Lenses." This is yet another reincarnation of
what might be called the "Old Barometer Story" (OBS). A search for
"barometer" at the Phys-L search engine
<https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi> yields 123
hits - most of them related to the OBS and dating from Joe Bellina's
(1996) post.
Bernard Cleyet (2007) initiated the present OBS thread in his Phys-L
post of 06 Sep 2007. He wrote [bracketed by lines "CCCCC. . . ."; my
insert at ". . . .[insert]. . . ."];
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
The. . . [OBS]. . . joke was originally published . . . .[more
accurately Callandra's version of the OBS]. . . . in the Sat. Rev. of
Lit. (<1980 probably ca. 1960). . . [more accurately the "Saturday
Review" of 12/21/68]. . . . . It involved originally just a
barometer. The point somewhat different from the present form was the
student didn't want to use the intended method (pressure change).
Here's his point more articulately (PER aficionados take note).
"At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the
conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but
said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors
trying to teach him how to think, to use the "scientific method," and
to explore the deep inner logic of the subject in a pedantic way, as
is often done in the new mathematics, rather than teaching him the
structure of the subject. With this in mind, he decided to revive
scholasticism as an academic lark to challenge the Sputnik-panicked
classrooms of America."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
PER aficionados take note? They already have - but it's hardly worth
noting! In "The Old Barometer Story" [Hake (2000)] I wrote [slightly
edited]:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Rick Strickert (2000a,b) in Phys-L posts of 1/5/00 and 5/24/00 points
out that a polemic version of the OBS titled "Angels on the Head of a
Pin: A Modern Parable," by Alexander Callandra appeared in the
"Saturday Review" of 12/21/68, and has been placed on the web by:
"The last paragraph of the story quoted above seems jarringly
inconsistent with the remainder of the story. In particular, the
mentions of "the new mathematics", "scholasticism", and "the
Sputnik-panicked classrooms of America" are irrelevant to both the
subject and the lesson of the story. During an exchange of e-mails
with Prof. Richard Hake during August 2000 about the origin of the
barometer story, I noticed that this discordant last paragraph does
*not* appear in a 1964 version of Calandra's story, and also does
*not* appear in the version in Calandra's 1961 book "The Teaching of
Elementary Science and Mathematics," which suggests to me that the
last paragraph was added by an editor at "Saturday Review" in 1968. A
copy of the 1964 version is posted at the end of a document at
Harvard University
<http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~phys191r/pdf/intro.pdf>. . . . . [Note
by Hake on 10 Sept. 2007: this URL has rotted]. . . . .I regard this
legendary story as important for what it says about teaching and
creativity, and I only care a little bit about the origin of this
legend."
Callandra . . .[or is it the editor of the Saturday Review? ]. . .
ends his version of the OBS with:
"At this point I asked the student if he really did know the
conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, said
that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to
teach him how to think, using the 'scientific method,' and to explore
the deep inner logic of the subject in a pedantic way, as is often
done in the NEW MATHEMATICS, rather than teaching him the structure
of the subject. With this in mind, he decided to revive
scholasticism as an academic lark to challenge the Sputnik-panicked
classrooms of America." (Our CAPS.)
I agree with Donald Simanek at
<http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/2_12.html#subindex> and
with Standler that Callandra (or possibly the editor of the Saturday
Review) seems confused, and it's not clear what point (if any) he (or
the editor) was trying to make.
Callandra's (or the editors) confusion and evident distaste for the
"New Math" of the 60's has its modern counterpart in the confusion
and distaste for the "New-New Math," a.k.a. "fuzzy math" of the 90's,
apparent at Mathematically Correct (MC)
<http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/>. As shown at
<http://mathematicallycorrect.com/what.htm>, MC also abhors (among
things) "constructivism" (which it erroneously equates with
"discovery learning"), "cooperative learning,", and "whole-language"
reading instruction.
How long will it be before an OBS with an anti-fuzzy-math message
appears at the MC website?
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Parents' organizations such as, "Mathematically Correct," "New York
City Honest and Open Logical Debate," and "Where's the Math?" among
dozens of others, continue to resist the imposition of "fuzzy math"
in their schools.
David Klein (2007) in (would by believe?) the American Journal of Physics
Klein, D. 2007. "School math books, nonsense, and the National
Science Foundation," Am. J. Phys. 75(2): 101-102; online at
<http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/nsf.html>.