YSunday, July 15, 2007

The Joys Of Physics Practical

It appears that my attempts satirical humour aren't always as successful as I'd imagined them to be. I had envisioned that people who had read the most recent post would have tears rolling down their cheek, instead I got reactions that can be classified as puzzlement. No matter. Life is, after all, a learning process.

Anyway, today's post is going to be about school. Though it is typically dull, there are moments (though few and far between) of amusement to be had during those long dreary hours. On Friday, those moments were during our Physics practical lesson. It however, began quite unremarkably. Our teacher was talking about uncertainty and errors and graphs and so on.

After his briefing, we would usually proceed to carry out the day's practical experiments,
which were usually involved staring at a pendulum or playing with marbles. Physics practicals are usually quite boring compared to those of the other sciences. In Chemistry, you get to play with dangerous chemicals and fire. That's always quite a thrill. In Biology, you get to cut up dead animals, which does seem quite macabre at times, but very interesting. I recall being put off by prawns for a period after cutting one up and seeing the vein of gross stuff located along the entire length of the its body. In biology you sometimes even get snacks. Throwing away kiwifruits that we had examined just wasn't in our nature.

Back to the Physics practical. We were learning about circular motion, which is exactly what it sounds like, things spinning in circles. Very scientific. So our experiments involved just that, spinning a weight round and round. Not very clever.

This practical just wasn't meant to be carried out. First of all, the labs aren't that big. So twirling around objects isn't the best thing to do. Many of us got hit, accidentally of course, by our friends' experiments. Some people got hit by their own experiments. Second, the fans in the labs were turned on, and with all of us whirling WEAPONS OF DEATH, there was a huge risk that some enthusiastic fellow would get his experiment tangled in the fans, and inadvertently create the ULTIMATE WEAPON OF DESTRUCTION. The mere thought of such an unintended cataclysmic occurrence sends shudders down my spines. Finally, some of us with more active imaginations believed ourselves to be Indiana Jones, cowboys, or some other heroic character, and took it upon ourselves to create situations where our experiments would help us escape, and bring justice to all who opposed us.

After a while, we were brought back to Earth by our teacher's reminders that we had to hand up our work on Monday.

Oh, the joys of Physics practical.

Labels:


Blogged @ 4:47 PM