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ABSTRACT: In his POD post titled "Developing for creativity," Mike
Theall wrote: "I heard a story a while ago that I think was about the
physicist Niels Bohr who supposedly flunked a test when he offered 14
perfectly appropriate ways to test a theory. . . . but omitted the
one way that the teacher was looking for. . . . In most students,
that kind of feedback would quash creativity." Mike may have seen the
story in Robert Beck's 2000 POD posting of an Old Barometer Story
(OBS) that featured Bohr as the student - doubtless false as
discussed in my POD response to Beck. Nevertheless, the OBS, in its
various guises, can serve as a reminder of the boring algorithmic
nature of many physics/math "problems" and the rebellion of many good
students against the rote learning required in many (usually
ineffective) traditional passive-student physics courses and in much
relatively ineffective K-12 science/math instruction.
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Mike Theall (2008), in his POD post of 10 Apr 2008 titled "Re:
Developing for creativity" wrote:
"I heard a story a while ago that I think was about the physicist
Niels Bohr who supposedly flunked a test when he offered 14 perfectly
appropriate ways to test a theory. . . . . but omitted the one way
that the teacher was looking for. His creativity was ignored by a
teacher whose narrow approach was limited to looking for only one,
i.e., his own, 'right' answer. In most students, that kind of
feedback would quash creativity. (Positive and useful feedback is an
important issue in promoting creativity.)"
In a POD post of 13 Jul 2000, Robert Beck (2000) wrote [bracketed by
lines "BBBBB. . . ."; my insert at ". . . .[insert]. . . . "]:
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
Allow me to share the following story (perhaps apocryphal), inspired
by our recent discussions. . .[see the 20-post POD thread of July
2000 at <http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0007&L=pod#84>. . .
. of "Problem Solving in Physics." [Perhaps our friend Richard Hake
can authenticate this amusing tale or expose it as fraud.]
*********************
A DANE TAKES A PHYSICS EXAM
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 and lower it from the top of the building until it
reaches 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.. . . . . . . [But the student, upon being
given another chance by an external examiner, came up with 6 other
methods of using a barometer to measure the height of a building,
including the conventional answer expected by the examiners: "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. ]. . . . . .
. . The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel prize
for Physics (1922).]
*********************
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
In response, in a post titled "The Old Barometer Story (was Problem
Solving in Physics)" [Hake (2000)], I wrote [slightly edited]:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The "Old Barometer Story" (OBS) has been appearing in various forms
for many decades. . . .[see e.g., Calandra, 1968]. . . . As far as I
have been able to determine, the original author is unknown. [The
version that features Bohr as a student at Copenhagen University] is
almost certainly false.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Despite its fictional nature, the OBS, in its various guises, can
serve as a reminder of the boring algorithmic nature of many
physics/math "problems" and the rebellion of many good students
[Tobias (1990), Seymour (1995), Seymour & Hewitt (2000)] against the
rote learning required in many [usually ineffective [Hake (1998a,b),
Hilborn (1997)] traditional passive-student physics courses and in
much relatively ineffective [Bowen (1998), Schmidt & McKnight (1998),
NRC (1999)] K-12 science/math instruction - see also "Is it time for
a physics counterpart of the Benezet/Berman math experiment of the
1930's?" [Mahajan & Hake (2000)]. . . .[and more recently "THE
BENEZET CENTER: Visit It" (Becker, 2008)].
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
For a more recent post on the "Old Barometer Story" see "Re: Free
Versus Pedantic Thinking" [Hake (2008a)]. The abstract reads:
"GS Chandy implied, in his Math-Teach post, that Alexander Calandra's
(1968) version of the 'The Old Barometer Story' carried a good moral
for math teachers: recognize sound and creative 'outside the box'
thinking rather than only pedantic thinking. But the rather obscure
last paragraph of Calandra's piece appears to carry the opposite
message. It seems likely that a Saturday Review editor may have been
responsible for both the last paragraph and the title
'Angels on the Head of a Pin: A Modern Parable.' "
To which mathematician Ralph Raimi (2008) replied:
"To me the moral of the barometer story has always been obvious, and
quite different from what is implied. . . [by GS Chandy]. . . .
above, and it surely had this meaning for us in 1943. . . [25 years
before Calandra (1968) !]. . . . ., when I first heard it while
taking an elementary physics course at the University of Michigan.
It was not that the list of alternate replies to the barometer
question represented 'outside the box' thinking that should be
emulated by us in our progress towards the practice of science; it
was that the exam question was a fatuous attempt to make physics
'meaningful' by concocting a phony 'real-life' application of the
knowledge that atmospheric pressure diminishes with altitude above
sea-level."
BTW, I'll forgo a 50 kB response to Mike Theall's closing sentence:
"And also ... I don't have anything else here. I just wanted to add
another digit to the tally of linguistic sins noted in Richard's
post . . . .["Cliche Challenge" Hake (2008b)]. . . . . Can a cliche
be creative?"
Bowen, S. 1998. "TIMSS - An Analysis of the International High School
Physics Test," APS Forum on Education Newsletter, Summer 1998, pp.
7-10, online at
<http://www.aps.org/units/fed/newsletters/aug98/timss2.html>: Bowen
wrote: "In conversations with Dr. Senta Raizen of NCISE, who is one
of the authors of the data analysis team for the TIMSS project,
several important points came up that are not fully emphasized in the
study reports. The major characteristic of the U.S. curricula is that
they cover a very large number of topics and are primarily focused on
vocabulary. Current U.S. students have been exposed to a very large
number of topics, but do not have experience in depth on many. The
various measures of student interest seem to continually drop with
grade level in the U.S. Many other countries exhibit an increase in
interest in science around the eighth grade where students go into
some depth with various subjects. In the U.S. there is a more or less
steady decrease in interest as the number of topics covered continues
to increase. . . . . My opinion of the TIMSS message for the physics
community is that we need to take responsibility for pre-college
physics and science teachers. We need to give them a better training
in physics. I think the TIMSS results reflect the same effects as
measured by the Force Concept Inventory in introductory mechanics
classes. We are not generally giving students an understanding of
physics which supports generalization and manipulation of concepts in
new contexts."
Calandra, GS. 1968 "Angels on the Head of a Pin: A Modern Parable,"
Saturday Review, 21 December; online, courtesy Donald Simanek, at
<http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/2_12.html#subindex>; along
with [as of 10 Sept 2007] 132 mostly hair-brained ways to measure the
height of a building with a barometer, submitted by divergent
thinkers to Joachim Verhagen's science jokes page
<http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/>.
NAP. 1999. National Academies Press. "Global Perspectives For Local
Action: Using TIMSS to Improve U.S. Mathematics and Engineering
Education. National Academy Press; online at
<http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9605>.
Hake, R.R. 1998a. "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A
six thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory
physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66(1): 64-74; online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/ajpv3i.pdf> (84 kB).
Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory
mechanics courses," online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/IEM-2b.pdf> (108 kB) - a crucial
companion paper to Hake (1998a).
Hake, R.R. 2008b. "Cliche Challenge," online at
<http://tinyurl.com/4u4gfr>. Post of 9 Apr 2008 to AERA-A,B,C,J,K,L;
AP-English; Net-Gold; Phys-L; PhysLrnR; POD; and WBTOLL.
Raimi, R.A. 2008. "Re: Free Versus Pedantic Thinking," Math-Learn
post of 27 Feb 27, online at <http://tinyurl.com/587hk7>.
Schmidt, W.H. & C. C. McKnight. 1998. "What Can We Really Learn from
TIMSS?" Science 282 (1998): 1830-1831; an abstract is online at
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/282/5395/1830?ck=nck>:
"Important policy implications regarding American mathematics and
science education are available through the results of the Third
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). This is
especially true if the results from all parts of the study including
those pertaining to curriculum and instructional practices are
combined with those related to the achievement testing in grades
three, four, seven, eight and the end of secondary school. The
decline in relative standing for the U.S. from grade four to grade 12
in both mathematics and science achievement is clear as are the
corresponding differences in intellectual rigor in the U.S.
curriculum as compared to that of the top achieving countries,
especially during the middle and high school years."
Seymour, E. & N. Hewitt. 2000. "Talking about Leaving: Why
Undergraduates Leave the Sciences." Westview Press. Amazon.com
information at <http://tinyurl.com/5dmstv>. Note the "Search Inside"
feature.
Theall, M. "Re: Developing for creativity," POD post of 10 Apr 2008
09:36:45 -0500; online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0804&L=pod&F=&S=&P=12227>.
Tobias, S. 1990. "They're Not Dumb, They're Different: Stalking the
Second Tier." Research Corporation. For a description of this and
other books by Tobias see <http://www.sheilatobias.com/talks.html>.