skewer the physics professor!

Here is what we did in physics lecture today:



First, we sandwiched Professor S between two beds of nails.



Next, we placed more weight (in the form of cinderblocks) on top of him.



We aimed a camera at his face and projected it on the big screen in the lecture hall, so we could all watch his expression. The two students there, kneeling beside him and wearing safety goggles, are holding up a board over his neck to protect his face from flying bits of cinderblock...



...caused by the demonstration tech taking a sledgehammer to the cinderblocks.

This, naturally, was a demonstration of the idea behind net force (the sum of all the forces acting on an object), a key component in the mathematical expression of Newton's Second Law of Motion (mass times acceleration = net Force).

Here is a view of my professor's back, post-demo:



See all the little nail-holes in his sweater? The things one sacrifices in the name of Science!

This whole thing was much, much more exciting than our usual lecture demos. Everyone was focused on the front of the room while this was going on - whereas, usually, there's a steady hum of low conversations going on as Prof. S sort of meekly tries to conduct a lecture. He's Polish, and while he seems like a very sweet man, he has the worst command of a lecture hall I've ever seen. He is far too urbane, civilized and European to tell those damn kids to SHUT THE FUCK UP, and as a consequence, he just sort of loses focus and drifts off into half-muttered half-explanations of whatever it is he's trying to teach us. It's a mess. For a gigantic lecture of over 200 mostly-freshmen, you've gotta be a real showman if you want to hold their attention for an hour and twenty minutes. He tries valiantly, bless his heart, but he just isn't. He ought to just post his lecture powerpoints online, and let whoever doesn't want to come to lecture not come to lecture. If they fail the class, too bad for them! It'd mean a lot more elbow room for those of us who do come to lecture, and a less-distracting learning environment, to boot.

Instead, we have to sit all crowded in there, and use these super-degrading clicker-things to answer multiple-choice questions he sprinkles throughout his lectures in lieu of taking attendance. A question goes up, and he plays a little computer file of the Jeopardy! theme song (but not the whole thing - only the first half, which he plays two or three times), accompanied by an animation of a little ape scratching his head, while we're mulling over our answers. We have to click in our choice, then he puts the results up on the screen (I almost always choose the wrong answer), then he explains what the answer should have been and why. It's a ridiculous process, and I really hate it (plus, the stupid music is driving me nuts). I used to really like physics. It was the only science class I enjoyed in high school, so much so that I actually took a physics class my first time through college. I was looking forward to taking it here, but so far, this has just been excruciating. I find myself watching the clock in this class, and I am not a clock-watcher - I'm the kind of person who pays attention in class and takes good notes so I won't have to do the reading at home (and now you know why I did so crappy in chemistry last semester). I realize this is an intro-level class in a large undergraduate university setting, but it doesn't have to be as bad as it is. That's all I'm saying.

Speaking of bad, the powerpoint slide accompanying the demonstration called it the "Bad of Nails Demo" (hee), so all day long I've been wandering around singing, "sleight of hand and twist of fate, on a bad of nails she makes me wait..." My apologies to U2.

Also, happy International Quirkyalone Day to all of you! While I am quirkymarried and not quirkyalone, I do think that other holiday people celebrate today is a pile of horse manure, so I'm all for any alternative to it (particularly one that is not so candy-coated).