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

is my all-time favourite subject at school. Mainly cos the teacher is a completely out-to-lunch frood.

My physics teacher is a wierdo, always philosophising about stuff... he's a geologist too, so he doesn't even undestand a lot of the physics. He looks like yoda, we think he may well be. Never mind, at least the other one gets it... it's like pure maths with her

I can remember my very first physics lesson when the teacher announced that boys were naturally good at physics but too lazy to do the coursework, whereas the girls were the hard working thickies who would do the coursework but fail the exams! Charming!

You wont be surprised to learn that I dropped physics at the first available opportunity.

As an aside, I know people who have done classes at school simply called 'science' which appear to have consisted of physics, chemistry, biology and rural studies but at my school these were taught as four entirely separate subjects.

At GCSE I did "science double award" which consisted of the 3 major ones (though chemistry is really just physics for slow people ), and every lesson we'd do the same experiment with those stupid ray boxes, and the exam was multiple choice. Needless to say I got a D for my coursework and an A overall.

We spend most of the time joking around in physics, but our teacher is a very good teacher too. Everyone gets high grades.

Ref Post 4, as I've said elsewhere, chemistry is THE CENTRAL SCIENCE, which interfaces closely with all the others, mathematics, biology, geology, engfineering....

It is also arguably the most diffiucult subject on the school curriculum because of the multitude of skills it demands: mathematics (for calculations) English Language (for describing/explaining) practical skills, cognitive skills because you are dealing with the 'nanoscale' i.e. things which you cannot see, and spatial awareness skills (to be able to visualise molecules in 3 dimensions). For these reasons, people with qualifications in vchemistry are extremely marketable in a whole gamut of career options.

I used to get bored in science, because we never got to do any experiments. About once in a blue moon we would get to use the Van de Graff Generator, and maybe a petri dish with some mouldy bread in it, but that was it.

Where's all thhe bubbling liquids, crazy pipework, Tesla Coils going ZZZZZAAAAPPPP and cries of 'it's alive' and 'Mwah ha ha ha.'

There is a theory that everything is derived from physics, including chemistry!

Yes, that's vtrue of course. But it's chemists who, in general, have the knowledge, vocabulary aand mathematical skills to interface with all other branhes of scoience.

hi

"Hi" - on something? Yes, a way to describe the normal state most physics teachers. You'd expect it to be the chemist really?

It was in physics I learned just how dense some people can be.

The physics department of our school exists to buy interesting and entertaining Devices.

Physics.

My memory is that none of the experiments never worked as they should.

My favourite bit was the electricity experiments.

Yep, dense when it came to seting-up 'experiments' and needing a chemistry teacher to help.

Anyone ever heard of a levitron?

Well' it's not a 'fundamental particle' for a start. It's a so-called 'anti-gravity top':

http://www.levitron.com/physics.html

My record is almost 3 minutes!