h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You mention of lines reminded me of a high school science teacher who was fascinated with lines.
A favourite question to ask him was to define a line. After he had defined it, there was usually general incomprehension about infinite points and or lines of infinite length etc and a general call for a practical demonstration. This invariably led, after sufficient prodding, to the teacher starting to draw a line on the blackboard, around the room and, if we were lucky, out the door. He would then proceed to extend the line along the hallway and into/around the quadrangle. At about this time the classroom was generally devoid of students.

"Please sir, but what's a line" was a popular Friday afternoon question
They retired him the year after. Something about honourable but doddery.

;^)#
I've just remembered the teachers nickname was Moon.

I always think they're the most fun kind of teachers, especially for things like maths and physics. I guess if students are lucky enough to be able to figure the actual work out themselves, these kind of teachers can be really inspirational and make you think 'outside the box', which is a very valuable thing to learn, especially while still at school. We had a similarly mad physics teacher who we tempt on a Friday afternoon off into the land of number games and computers. He was great.

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply - new job/computer/network/hassles, etc!

Cheers!

There's a certain something about eccentric science teachers - strange humanities teachers just don't make the grade.


;^)#

I had a superb (and exceptionally short) maths teacher called Dr. Mallion, who was very meek and gentle, and so was naturally called Mallion the Stallion. Anyway, he had this great definitition of the phrase "For all intents and purposes" as it pertains to asymptotic curves. It went like this:

"Imagine that I lined all the boys in the class up against one wall and all the girls up against the opposite wall. Now, I say to the boys 'halve your distance between yourselves the girls'. Now do it again. Now, if the boys keep doing that, they will eventually be close enough to the girls 'for all intents and purposes.'"

I once had a science teacher that liked to blow stuff up a lot. He wore a wig and had no eyebrows, purportedly because he had chemically burned all the hair off his head and killed the hair folicles. He was the coolest science teacher I ever had.

I also had a geometry teacher that gave me a C in his class if I promised never to take geometry again.

Gotta love that! (The smartest thing I ever did was make friends with the man)