This is for Loring

[pelligrini]

I certainly didn't expect so many responses to my post. Maybe I should post the question as to whether H#ll is exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat).

You trying to start a religious discussion now?

[LCHIEN]

Well, i was not the type to rock the boat, either. The attitude that served me best was, not what's the most clever way to solve this problem, but what's the expectation of the person asking me to solve this problem. Unless you are the boss, the most rewarding way to solve the problem is in the fashion that the asker expects. In this case, its pretty obvious that the asker wants the problem to be solved using the barometric pressure (hence the barometer and not a ball, string or other simple items).

when i was in junior high school we had this one physiocal science test. A question was
How hot is the surface of the sun?
A. Greater than 100 degrees K
B Greater than 500 degrees K
C Greater than 1000 degrees K
D greater than 5000 degrees K

Well, I knew it was about 5700 degrees
but actually it could be argued that any of the answer was corrrect, e.g. 5700 is clearly greater than 100.
So actually a person who did not know how hit the un was, but clever, could chose A and be correct.
I was actually going to put A and make a point to the teach how clever I was and figured I could win the argument
but just before i turned it in I realized you can never win an argument with someone in power who didn't want to admit defeat, and that D was really the answer she wanted and it just wasn't worth it so i changed my answer to D.

I always taught my kids that if the correct answer is X but you know the teacher wants Y, give her what she wants, get the A grade and keep it to yourself that you are smarter than the teacher.

[cwithboat]

The proper answer (to the height of the building) may be found on may be found on Wikipedia.

[BobSch]

...I always taught my kids that if the correct answer is X but you know the teacher wants Y, give her what she wants, get the A grade and keep it to yourself that you are smarter than the teacher.

I learned that one in high school. Especially with fuzzy subjects—Give the instructor what they want, not what you think is the right answer.

[jackellis]

Another (somewhat related) take on the larger issue (independent thinking). I was talking with a climate scientist earlier this week at a conference and our conversation turned to the topic of being able to estimate answers rather than relying on computers. Apparently half of his students in one class, when asked to estimate the range over which a certain equation was linear, found the answer by plotting points and using curve-fitting software.

As a kid, I read a book titled "Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine". This was at a time when digital computers were really in their infancy and occupied large, air conditioned rooms. Danny lived with a relative who was a college professor and he had access to this machine, which he and his friends spent endless hours programming to do their homework for them. They all got As, because the teacher noted they had to understand the material in order to program the machine.

Sadly, with so much packaged software available today, Google is all it takes to find a solution to most problems. Whether the solution is correct or not depends on how well you understand the problem.

I've grown very fond of my slide rules lately.

[sailor55330]

Hmmm. I would have just looked at the blueprints of the building.

In other words.....who cares?