Can You Get Out of the Crisis with a Barometer?

A physics professor calls a colleague about a problem with a student who has just had an examination.

The teacher wants to give a zero to the student, but the student thinks he deserves full marks.

So the other teacher has to be the referee and decide on the problem.

And here's the examination’s question: How can you calculate the height of a building with a barometer?

And the answer given by the student was:

- "You tie a string to the barometer and glide it gently to the ground, then calculate the length of the string, that gives the building height."

This solution gave a perfect answer, but it was not the answer the physics professor expected, so they decided to give him a second chance and agreed to allow him 6 minutes more to find the correct solution using his knowledge of physics.

And the 5 minutes passed by ...

But the student had not yet written anything!

One teacher asks:

- You don't know the answer, do you want to leave?

And the student replies:

- On the contrary, I have many answers to this problem, I'm just trying to choose the best one.

And finally responds:

- You put the barometer on the roof and let it fall down while measuring the time it takes to hit the ground with a stopwatch. Then using the formula: x = gt  / 2, this is the height of the building.

But this wasn't either the answer the physics teacher expected, but the teacher that acted as a referee decided to give the student the maximum score.

After the examination was over, the referee professor called the student and asked him:

- You told me you had several solutions to solve this problem. Could you give me another one?

- And the student quickly replied:

- If, for example, you put the barometer outside in a sunny day, then calculate the height of the barometer, the length of the shadow casted by it and the length of the shadow casted by the building. After a simple rule of proportion we find the height of the building.

- Very good! - Replied the teacher, what were the other answers?

- We climb upstairs with the barometer while we mark the height of the barometer on the wall from bottom to top. At the end we count the number of marks to get the height of the building measured with the height of barometer unit.

And then he gave other answers:

- You can also tie the barometer to a string and swing it like a pendulum. Then you can determine the value of g at the floor level and at the roof level. Then you can calculate the height of the building from the difference in g.

And finally he said:

- There are many other ways to solve this problem. The simplest way may be to get down to the basement and knock on the door of the janitor's house and tell him: this wonderful barometer will be yours if you tell me the height of this building.

Finally the teacher asked if he knew the answer to the other teacher expected of him and admitted that yes, but that he was tired of teachers trying to teach him how to think.

This is a true story, that of Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics in 1922 ...

What can we learn from this story?

Obviously, we can draw many lessons from it, but for me the most important thing is to always seek alternative solutions to a problem! Our education teaches us that usually there is only one solution to a problem, the famous dogma of mathematics ... but it is wrong!

We live in times where we need more imagination (and more action), as the sources of income, the more you have, the more security you’ll get. Here are some more solutions that will likely help you to live in prosperity and ignore the crisis ...

The idea is to get out of your comfort zone and try new things ... If you're like everyone else, you will have the same results as everyone else ...

And you, what lessons do you take from this story?