In honor of my starting a new semester of classes, here's some oldies but goodies about ... well ... being in a classroom. : )
Enjoy! I really hope that you like the last one - it's a favorite of mine. LOL
Michelle
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In the introductory biology class I teach at a Texas university, we had been studying human reproduction. For an exam, one of my questions was: “Female humans are born with a limited number of eggs, while males, during their lifetime, produce millions upon millions of sperm. Why are so many sperm produced?”
One young woman’s answer: “Because they won’t ask for directions, either.”
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Mr. Perkins, the biology instructor at a posh suburban girl's junior college, said during class, "Miss Smythe, would you please name the organ of the human body, which under the appropriate conditions, expands to six times its normal size, and define the conditions."
Miss Smythe gasped, then said freezingly, "Mr. Perkins, I don't think that is a proper question to ask me. I assure you my parents will hear of this."
With that she sat down red-faced. Unperturbed, Mr. Perkins called on Miss Johnson and asked the same question.
Miss Johnson, with composure, replied, "The pupil of the eye, in dim light."
"Correct," said Mr. Perkins. "And now, Miss Smythe, I have three things to say to you. One, you have not studied your lesson. Two, you have a dirty mind. And three, you will some day be faced with a dreadful disappointment."
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This past fall semester, at Duke University, there were two sophomores who were taking Organic Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such that going into the final they had a solid 'A.'
These two friends were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week, even though the Chem. final was on Monday, they decided to go up to University of Virginia and party with some friends up there. So they did this and had a great time. However, with their hangovers and everything, they overslept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to Duke until early Monday morning.
Rather than taking the final then, what they did was to find Professor Aldric after the final and explain to him why they missed the final. They told him that they went up to UVA for the weekend, and had planned to come back in time to study, but that they had a flat tire on the way back and didn't have a spare and couldn't get help for a long time and so were late getting back to campus. Aldric thought this over and then agreed that they could make up the final on the following day.
The two guys were elated and relieved. So, they studied that night and went in the next day at the time that Aldric had told them. He placed them in separate rooms and handed each of them a test booklet and told them to begin.
They looked at the first problem, which was something simple about free radical formation and was worth 5 points.
"Cool" they thought, "this is going to be easy." They did that problem and then turned the page. They were unprepared, however, for what they saw on the next page.
It said: (95 points) Which tire?
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*This one is the one that is my favorite*
A retiring Phys Chem professor was setting his last exam, for a graduate course in statistical thermodynamics. Being a bit bored with it all, and with a well kept and wry sense of humor, he set a single question on the sheet:
Is Hell endothermic or exothermic? Support your answer with proof.
He had little idea what to expect, or how to grade the results, but decided to reward any student who was able to come up with a reasonable and consistent reply to his query. Only one A was awarded.
Most students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law of some varient. The top student, however, wrote the following:
"First we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving?
"I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.
"As for souls entering hell, let us look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to hell.
"With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.
"Now we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that: in order for the temperature and pressure to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. There are two possible conditions:
#1. "If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure will increase exponentially until all hell breaks loose.
"Conversely, if hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, than the temprature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over, condition #2.
"We can solve this with the 1990 postulation of Theresa LeClair, the girl who lived across the hall from me in my first year residence. Since I have still not been successful in obtaining sexual relations with her, condition two has not been met, and thus, it can be concluded that condition one is true, and hell is exothermic."
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