Niels Bohr, barometers and building heights
Patrick
barometer...But was it really Neils Bohr who came up with the various
mischevious answers in reply to a physics exam question, when a student?
[see eg
http://physics.sci.geneseo.edu/padalino/honors_302_a_true_story.htm ]
There's no mention of it in Abraham Pais' biography ''Niels Bohr's
times'', so I suspect it is just a circulating internet myth. Anyone
know of the *origin* of the story? Here's the best I've been able to
find searching the internet - this from a newsgroup thread : ''Nor had
we read the story (with a few left out details, and no mention of Neils
Bohr at all) in a late '70's edition of Omni Magazine (quite probably
the same issue with the article about infamous Cal-Tech pranks week.)''
[see
http://net-services.ufl.edu/~www/net/mhonarc/ccc/archive.d20000701/msg00177.html
]
I'd like to nail this one cos it recently got printed in our in-house
magazine; in my opinion there's no need to make up stories about the
greatness of NB.
Thanks for help!
Patrick Warren
Chronon
ISBN 0-85498-040-7.
It is attributed to Alexander Calandra, from "The Saturday Review", 21
December 1968, p.60.
It makes no mention of Rutherford or Bohr, and the last line "With this in
mind he decided to revive scholasticism as an academic lark to challenge the
Sputnik-panicked classrooms of America" places it in an entirely different
place and time.
Stephen Lee
J. J. Lodder
> In article <39AEC0CA...@pjwarren.demon.co.uk>,
> Patrick <pat...@pjwarren.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >OK, there's lots of ways to measure the height of a building with a
> >barometer...But was it really Niels Bohr who came up with the various
> >mischevious answers in reply to a physics exam question, when a student?
> >
> >[see eg
> >http://physics.sci.geneseo.edu/padalino/honors_302_a_true_story.htm ]
> Well, I note that this particular version of the story -- which seems
> to be the one you hit most often on the web -- implies that Bohr was a
> student at an institution at which Rutherford was a member of staff,
> which is certainly false; Bohr studied at the University of Copenhagen
> at a time when Rutherford was in Manchester. Moreover, the Rutherford
> connexion was obviously invented by someone who didn't know much about
> scientific institutions -- the Royal Academy is for artists.
> (Presumably the Royal Society is what was meant.)
I think the original version appeared a long time ago in
Am J Phys,
without any attribution to anybody at all,
as just an amusing story.
Would have to search though, and lack the time.
Ref appreciated, in case anybody has it handy,
Jan
Toby Bartels
>OK, there's lots of ways to measure the height of a building with a
>barometer...But was it really Neils Bohr who came up with the various
>mischevious answers in reply to a physics exam question, when a student?
The Urban Legends Reference Pages,
<http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/barometr.htm>,
traces the legend back to a math textbook in 1961
but also cites its appearance in Reader's Digest in 1958.
Apparently, Bohr has only been involved for the past couple of years.
There seems to be no reason to think it's *true* of anyone.
<http://www.snopes.com/> is a great resource.
For instance, did you know the "Which tire?" exam question legend
dates back to the Apocryphal Book of Susanna? Great stuff!
-- Toby
to...@math.ucr.edu
George Jones
> OK, there's lots of ways to measure the height of a building with a
> barometer...But was it really Neils Bohr who came up with the various
> mischevious answers in reply to a physics exam question, when a student?
>
Recently, I have had 2 friends e-mail the Bohr story, so it must
be making the rounds. However, I first ran into the story in its
Bohrless version in Gell-Mann's book "The Quark and the Jaguar",
pages 270-273,where he cites the Teacher's edition of Current
Science, Vol. 49, January 6-10, 1964, as the source of the story.
The story was authored physics professor Dr. Alexander Calandra of
Washington University in St. Louis.
I don't know: 1) if the original story actually ocurred or was
apocryphal, and 2) how, why, when Bohr first made an appearance.
Regards
George