Genius

Session Magazine presents you a story about genius. Maybe you wanna take a closer look, and after reading this story, you would probably try to figure out some of the other solutions for this problem. Enjoy!

“Describe how you can measure the height of a skyscraper with a regular barometer .” – This was a question on the physics exam at the University of Copenhagen.

One of the students answered: “Around the tip of the skyscraper tie one end of long cord, and slowly bring down barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the cord banded to the length of the barometer is, in fact, the height of the skyscraper”

The professor was very enraged with this quite genuine answer, so the student failed the exam and was excluded from physics class at this university. The student appealed on his basic rights with an explanation that his answer was undeniably correct, and because of that university formed special independent committee which was to estimate this case. The president of the committee decided that the answer was indeed correct, but that it wasn’t relevant as an evidence of knowledge in this matter of physics. In order to resolve the problem, it was decided that the student should appear in front of a special committee, and in that case he would have six minutes to verbally answer the exam question and by doing so prove his knowledge in basic principles of physics.

And so it was. For five minutes student sat silently, thinking. The president of the committee warned the student that he was running out of time, and that there was only one minute left for his answer. The student answered that he has a couple of very relevant answers, but he couldn’t decide which one he should give as a final answer. He was advised once more to hurry, and after that last warning the student answered next:

- First, we could bring the barometer to the top of the skyscraper, throw it from the edge of the building and measure the time needed to hit the ground. In that case the height of the skyscraper would be

H= 0,5g x t2.

The only problem is that the barometer would probably be broken.

- Or, in case there is sunshine, we might measure the length of barometer and also measure the height of its shadow, and than measure the height of skyscrapers’ shadow and than use proportional arithmetic to calculate the height of the skyscraper.

- If you really want sound highly scientific, you can tie short cord at the end of the barometer and swing it like a clapper, at first at the ground, and than at the top of the skyscraper. The height matches the variation of the gravitational force that affects on the made “clapper”,

T=2p*2x*(1/g).

- Fourth solution, in case the skyscraper has the emergency stairs, would be the simplest: measure each floor of the stairs in barometer lengths, and on the top only add up in that way measured lengths.

- And if you want a boring solution, and so I assume , you could use the barometer to measure the pressure of air on the ground, than do the same on the roof, and than use the difference in millibar for calculating the height of the building.

- However, since you keep encouraging us to practice the independence of our minds in implementation of scientific methods, I think that the easiest thing would be to knock on the door of the housekeeper in the skyscraper and tell him: ”I will give you my new barometer if you tell me how high is this building.”.

It is needless to say that the student passed the exam, and some years after became the first Dane to win the Nobel Prize in physics.

The one and only Niels Bohr.