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It goes back to at least 1961 when I heard it in a gen chem class. It
was a bit different in scenario. It was about how a chemist,
physicist, business major and engineer would each make the
measurement. The engineer used the string, the physicists dropped it,
the chemist used the pressure, and the business major bribed the
janitor to get the best value.
I suspect it may go back much earlier. After all there are only 5
jokes, and the rest are just variations.
John M. Clement
Houston, TX
“The Barometer Story” by Alexander Calandra (Current Science,
Teacher’s
edition, 1964)
If you want the whole story, send me a note.
John Hubisz
Bernard Cleyet wrote:
The joke was originally published in the Sat. Rev. of Lit. (<1980_______________________________________________
probably ca. 1960) 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.
This version is, as well as I can remember, exactly the Sat.
Review's.
http://www.math.vt.edu/people/adjerids/homepage/joke.html
bc, has the original somewhere.
Douglas Johnson wrote:
I wonder if there is enough density difference between the glass
types to use Archemede's Principle? ... Doug J.
Reading these responses reminds me of an old joke I heard once... I
hope I can give it justice..
A physics instructor gave a student a foot long ruler, stopwatch,
and
a rope to determine the height of a tower on campus in order to get
an "A" in his class. The student went and used the ruler and
measured each stair in the tower carefully all the way up to the
top.
He added it up and took his answer to the instructor who in turn
said
that it was the wrong answer. So the second attempt he took the
ruler and dropped it off of the tower and timed it's fall,
calculated
the results and turned it in to his instructor. Of course the
instructor said it was close, but it wasn't correct. So the third
time he took the ruler and tied it onto the end of the rope and made
a pendulum out of it and measured the period of the swing, made his
calculations and once again gave it to his instructor. The
professor
was impressed at his determination and cleverness of his
measurements, but once again it wasn't the correct answer. So about
an hour later he came back with another answer and it was exactly
right. The professor was shocked and shook his head and asked him
how he did this with just the three articles he was given. The
student responded, "I found the janitor and propose to him this
question, that if he could tell me the height of the tower, that I
would give him the ruler, stopwatch, and the rope."
Well, I thought it was funny... I may have forgotten some of the
details... Doug J.
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