"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper w

[The Swagman]

One student replied:

"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to 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. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case. The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use.

On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."

"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqroot (l / g)."

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."

"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."

"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."

The student was Niels Bohr, the only person from Denmark to win the Nobel prize for Physics.

[Holger Danske]

Have read some of Niels's books ...
He didn't live in my world, that's for sure...
A brilliant mind...

[Stinky]

I feel this thread is dieing out so I thought I would high-jack it with a thread not worth a whole post.

Being an argos employee, I learn't a ''trick of the trade'', and there was only 1 which will help you wizz past queues this Christmas. As everybody knows places like this fill up and you have to wait 10 minutes before your item actully gets to the till and then you have to wait for the people at the till to order your number which can take a while as they have to go through everybody elses things before they can do you.
Note, this only works when you are getting 1 or 2 items at argos. Choose your Item and ask if you can look at it, the ticket will come out on a diffrent printer to normal orders out the back, and most likely will be picked first. You wait at the costumer service till which will normally have no queue (exept after Christmas when everybody is bring back their stuff and the queue then goes out the entrance), they show you the item and you can pay for it there and then, skipping the whole queue and saving yourself a LOT of time . I know this is not military related (why it is in General Discussion) and you might not even shop at argos, but I posted this because obvously Christmas is coming and I am sure at least one person will benefit from this.

[Sisyphus]

But, all the same, far more interesting and practical than working out the height of skyscrapers!