Dr. Snarky’s double video post got me thinking about the off-the-wall questions I get asked just because I study chemistry. These are not just unusual questions, like, “Sir, can you touch your finger to your nose?” or “Why are you wearing my underwear?” I’m talking about science related questions that grad school never prepared me for.
Top Ten Most Bizarre Science Questions I’ve Been Asked:
10. Could you check out this evidence that military explosives brought down the World Trade Center?
9. Do you make LSD?
8. Why don’t scientists allow us to travel faster than light?
7. That’s interesting research. Why don’t you find a cure for AIDS instead?
6. How else could we have developed the transistor without aliens’ advanced knowledge?
5. Why can’t you scientists build stuff that doesn’t break?
4. After seeing me teach some weird topics in quantum mechanics, a student’s father asks, “You don’t actually believe all that stuff you teach, do you?”
3. Can’t we harness the positive energy flow that is all around us due to Feng Shui?
2. When will you start doing useful research, like making better paint for parking lot stripes?
1. How do you hide arsenic poisoning?
Sometimes I regret discussing science with the general public. It never works out the way I thought it would.
7 is cracking me up. We used to say that to each other in grad school (using cancer instead of AIDS) because we were the P-chem division and nothing we do is relevant for... anything. Sure, we blow a lot of nanosmoke up everyone's ass now and then when we need some $$, but we really don't care about technology. We just like using a lot of electricity, making a lot of noise, and occasionally aiming a laser at pre-med students.
ReplyDeleteNumber 3 is two layers of stupidity because Feng Shui is a system of aesthetics and not a form of "zero point energy"; it's all about "harmony" between people, buildings, and landscapes. In the West it has become a New Age scam, but in Taiwan or the PRC it is a legacy of the history and culture of China from even before the first Chinese dynasty.
ReplyDeleteNumber 6 annoys the hell out of me because we already knew how to make electrical components out of pizoelectric crystals (capacitors, resistors, tuning crystals, etc.) but not how to make a modulator/oscillator out of them. Do these idiots know about radio tubes? Do they realize how while the tube was very good at making radios, transmitters, PA amplifiers, etc. that it was not fast enough for computing equipment? It's fine to not know about Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley, but Phil Corso has no real proof while there are three or four patents on transistor-like devices going back to the mid-1920s.
I get versions of number 4, so casually offensive....
ReplyDelete"Do you make LSD?"
ReplyDeleteNo, but I brew beer and distill whiskey for personal consumption, just so I can forget this inane conversation."
"I get versions of number 4, so casually offensive...."
ReplyDelete- V
They would never say that kind of crap after their pastor/priest/rabbi/imam rambled through some half-baked sermon....and you have proof that what you talked about was real!
As soon as I tell anyone I'm in psychology I get bombarded with "So what am I thinking?", "You're analyzing me right now, aren't you?", "You know it's not a *real* science, right?", etc.
ReplyDeleteNo shit, Strelni. Makes me fantasize about violence.
ReplyDeleteAnastasia, the best reply I've found for this is, "I wish you were that interesting."
I usually tell them that they are either very messed up, or I say that I could tell them what they're thinking, but it would cost them $50/h.
ReplyDeleteWhen people find out I'm an historian, it's usually cool. But sometimes they want to test me. It is usualy trivia about royalty: "When did Louis XIV rule France?"
ReplyDeleteSometimes, it isn't a quiz, but a serious query: "Is it true that Hitler only had one ball?"
Those kinds of questions tell us what the "people" or, as our presidents have come to call them, "folks," think the study of history is about.
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ReplyDeleteI witnessed a trustee at my school ask a biology professor, with a straight face, "Is there really something to this evolution stuff?"
ReplyDeleteThe biologist, to his credit, gave a very respectful and intelligent reply that yes, those crazy biologists are on to something.
"Do you make LSD?"
ReplyDeleteOf course not, it's -highly- illegal!
"Why don't you do practical research?"
Every time I do, some pea-brains give me a hard time about it. With fusion energy, I've been told, "It's the energy source of the future, and always will be." This sounds to me like, "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
I get a lot more grief for time-series analysis. This is because one application it's useful for is observing climate change.
"Could you check out this evidence that military explosives brought down the World Trade Center?"
ReplyDeleteWe had one of these guys talk to our students, and I'm proud to say they tore him up, reducing him to repeating, "You can't PROVE it didn't happen." Sorry, but it doesn't work that way...
"Why don’t scientists allow us to travel faster than light?"
ReplyDeleteHey, if it were up to scientists, we'd be all for it. Unfortunately, it's up to nature.
“How else could we have developed the transistor without aliens’ advanced knowledge?”
Excuse me, but I understand how transistors work. Just because you don’t is no reason to blame aliens.
“After seeing me teach some weird topics in quantum mechanics, a student’s father asks, ‘You don’t actually believe all that stuff you teach, do you?’”
I avoid the weirder aspects of QM when I teach it, and stick to the practical applications, such as how transistors work. I think Paul Dirac was right to refuse to argue about this, because QM is just a description of what we see.
Another response I’ve used is: “It’s not a matter of belief, it’s a matter of evidence. Transistors/Digital watches/Antibiotics/Pesticides do work, you know.” (The last two are for inquiries taking issue with Darwin.)
“Why can’t you scientists build stuff that doesn’t break?”
Because, as any child will soon find out, an unbreakable toy can be used to break other toys.
"That’s interesting research. Why don’t you find a cure for AIDS instead?"
Some answers I've given for this include:
- Because I don't have a medical degree or any medical training, which is what you need to work on people. Since you don't have a medical degree either, why don't -you- get one, and do it?
- By the time I get the required medical degree, it might already be cured.
- That's somebody else's job. I could refer you to some people I know in the bio department, if you like.
- I know some people who already do. It's unlikely that I could beat them at their own game, at this late date: science is about doing things that are different.
Honestly, though, this question is so thoughtless, all that's necessary is just to cut the conversation short.
“Can’t we harness the positive energy flow that is all around us due to Feng Shui?”
Because it’s nonsense, dummy.
Froderick:
ReplyDeleteWe had one of these guys talk to our students, and I'm proud to say they tore him up, reducing him to repeating, "You can't PROVE it didn't happen." Sorry, but it doesn't work that way...
We had one of those guys come here too, and he decided to make his stand on the Library Walk, which happened to be in front of the very library that has an excellent engineering section and is near to Revelle College, the primary college for engineering and science majors. He flamed out early.
I'm a biologist, and I know enough physics and engineering to demolish their piss-poor arguments. None of the Truthers I've ever talked to knew anything about the concept of "static load" and they all seem to think that the Pentagon damage was due to a missile because any plane should leave wing-shaped holes in the side! This is what happens when people get their notions of the physics of collisions from Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons.
"Sometimes I regret discussing science with the general public."
ReplyDeleteSometimes I regret discussing scientific method with members of the chemistry department.
@Nullifidian
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but you've just given your college away; you should have come up with fake names for those places. (Unless you came up with fake names and they coincidentally are names from that campus.)
@V
The name's STRELNIKOV; it means "hunter" or "shooter"....it beats the names of certain KGB agents such as Baladin (Soupy) or Volkopylatov (Wolf-skin stretcher.)