Full marks for Nobel Prize winners

One morning Ernest Rutherford, the famous physicist and Nobel Prize winner, got a call from a colleague. A colleague said he was going to give a student a zero on a physics paper when the student claimed he deserved a perfect score. So they decided to find an impartial judge, and Rutherford was chosen. There was only one question on the whole paper, which asked: "How do you use a barometer to determine the height of a building?" The students' answer was: "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to the barometer, drop the barometer to the ground, then lift it up and measure the length of the rope, which is the height of the building."

The student did have a good reason to get full marks because his answers were accurate and accurate. On the other hand, a full mark would undoubtedly indicate that he is highly skilled in physics, and this answer does not confirm this. How is this adjudicated? After much thought, Rutherford suggested that the student try again, giving him six minutes in which he must answer the question with knowledge of physics. Five minutes passed and the student wrote nothing. Rutherford asked him if he wanted to give up, and he replied that he had several answers and was trying to decide which was the best. Rutherford apologizes for interfering with his thoughts and asks him to continue. In the next minute, he quickly wrote the following answers: "the barometer to the edge of the roof, loosen your hands, let it free fall, fell to the ground with a stopwatch to record barometer of time, then use free fall formula h = 0.5 * g * t2 (height = 0.5 * time squared acceleration of gravity), to calculate the height of the building."

After reading the students' answers, Rutherford asked his colleague if he still stood by what he had said. The colleague laughed, and then praised the student for doing very well, and gave him a full score. As Rutherford was leaving his colleague's office, he suddenly remembered that the student had said he had several other answers, and curiously asked him what they were. The student replied, "There are many ways to measure the height of a building with a barometer. For example, on a sunny day, take the barometer outside, measure the height of the barometer and the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow cast by the building, and by using a simple method of proportions, you can calculate the height of the building."

"Excellent," said Rutherford. "What about other methods?"

The student smiled and replied, "There is another classic method that you might like to use. Here's how to do it: take the barometer, start climbing the stairs, and mark the length of the barometer on the wall one by one, keeping in mind how many marks you've made. In a nutshell, this method uses a barometer as a ruler to measure the height of a building."

"A very straightforward way." "Rutherford laughed.

"Of course, in a more complicated way, you can attach a barometer to one end of a string and swing it like a pendulum to measure the acceleration of gravity, G, on the ground and on the roof. In theory, from the difference between these two g's, the height of the building can be calculated."

"In the same way, take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to the barometer, lower the barometer, close to the ground, and let it swing like a pendulum. From the period of its swing, the height of the building can be calculated."

"In short," he concluded, "there are many ways to solve this problem."

"Probably the best way to do this is to take the barometer down to the basement of the building and knock on the doorman's door. When the doorman opens the door, you say to him, 'Sir, I have a very good barometer here, and if you can tell me the height of this building, the barometer is yours. '"

At this point, Rutherford asked the student if he really didn't know the most conventional way to answer the question. He answered that he knew, but said that he was really tired of teachers trying to teach him how to think from school to college.

The student's name was Niels Bohr. Years later, he won the Nobel Prize in physics.