Re: [Phys-L] creativity / curiosity / questions in class

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 03/11/2014 09:17 AM, Anthony Lapinski wrote:
> I'm curious -- what's a "dumb qustion" a student could ask
> in a physics class?

1) Q: "In the homework you used the word 'furlong'.  How are 
we supposed to know what a furlong is?"  
A: You could look it up.

2) Sometimes it depends on context.  If the student asks "what's
wrong with sig figs?" and the assigned reading started with 10 
examples of how sig figs lead to spectacularly wrong answers, 
then I'm gonna be underwhelmed by the question.

(In other contexts the same question might be perfectly OK.)

3) Q: "In 2nd Esdras 42 it says water covers one seventh of 
the surface of the earth.  How dare you show us a map that
shows large oceans all over the place?"

I'm not sure this counts as a "dumb" question, but IMHO it is
a highly inappropriate question to be asking in the physics
class.

4) Q: "I showed the homework to my boyfriend who is an engineering
major and he didn't know how to do it.  How can you expect us to
do it?"
A:  Maybe your boyfriend should take the course.  It would teach
him some interesting and useful things.

*) et cetera............