This is a letter I found on slashdot, amazing.

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.I read the examination question:

“SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER.”

The student had answered, “Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.” The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read:

“Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2, calculate the height of the building.”

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were. “Well,” said the student, “there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building,and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building.” “Fine,” I said, “and others?” “Yes,” said the student, “there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units.” “A very direct method, of course.”

If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building,in principle, can be calculated.” “On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession”. “Finally,” he concluded, “there are many other ways of solving the problem. Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent’s door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: “Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer.” At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think. 

NOTE: Ok you got me, the story is fabricated – but the point remains.

Related: Physicist Feynman talks about looking at things from a new perspective.

For the second time in as many years, Canada has been chosen as the most uncooperative nation at the 2008  United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland. Since 1999, the Climate Action Network (CAN), has been distributing “Fossil-of-the-Day Awards” to the country who is most active in “blocking, stalling or undermining” the UN Climate Change negotiations.  As the recipient of 21 prizes, Canada outclassed both the U.S. and Japan -  the perennial favourites in the international race-to-the-bottom concerning the reduction of CO2 emissions.

This December, Canada received “awards” for ordering the Secretariat to tear down a photo presentation on the Alberta Tar Sands; for hypocrisy concerning its alleged support for wind energy; and for citing its cold climate and large size as two reasons for its failure to reduce emissions.

Way down in Tennesse, a major spill has occurred. Over 3.7 billion litres of slurry, comprised of fly ash from a coal fired power plant and water, has spilled into the local environment. The dams allegedly broke due to large rainfall and very cold weather – but ultimately, they broke because they were not strong enough. This spill is over 4 times larger than the oil spilt by the Exxon Valdeez and poses some questions about the safety of large tailings ponds.

I was personally involved in the tailings management at a gold mine in Ontario and it was a constant battle to process the tailings fast enough to avoid building new dams. We had to meet strict environmental requirements for the water we processed and discharged, but we were able to discharge. Many of these tailing ponds cannot be easily processed and as such, cannot be discharged.

Up here in Canada we are the proud owners of the largest tailing ponds on the planet, they are even visible from space. Centered around the tar sands projects in Alberta, these ponds represent significant risk to the people of Alberta and everyone downstream. The largest one, Syncrude’s, has an astonishing 540 trillion litres of volume. Are they safe? Of course their owners say they are, but so did the owner of the coal plant in Tennesse. 

With oil prices near 40$ and looming budget cuts for the tar sands, we can only hope that they do not skimp on their environmental responsibilities.

Predictions are a fool’s game, especially in the wake of such an unpredictable year, but here’s one. Ontario is faced with a major decision in 2009: Who will build its next generation of nuclear plants? Two bidders — AREVA (France), and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. — are still in the race. One could expect Ontario to favour AECL, which has been trying to line up customers for a new CANDU reactor, and is promotting job creation as an added benefit. But the design has yet to be approved by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and foreign competition — from the French mainly — is fierce. Plus, AREVA Canada has aggressively been trying to trump AECL’s homegrown argument by promising significant ‘Canadian content’ as well as helping it diversify its nuclear technology, namely by introducing light-water technology. All of which is why this blogger is betting on AREVA.

Manitoba’s new Climate Change and Emissions Reductions Act aims to reduce the province’s GHG emissions by at least 6% below 1990 levels, by 2013. The Act comes into effect on January 1, 2009.

Some of the highlights include:

1. Setting up a public Registry where individuals and corporations can voluntarily report their emissions
2. The creation of a vehicle standards advisory board to advise the government on cost-effective emission reductions for new private vehicles
3. Requiring landfill owners to develop a plan to mitigate their emissions
4. Banning the provincial power utility (Manitoba Hydro) from using coal to generate power after December 31, 2009 (the vast majority of Manitoba’s electricity is produced by hydro anyway)

While laudable, most of these measures affect only the government or its entities (i.e. municipalities and Crown corporations). There are no restrictions on businesses or individuals. Still, the government has broad regulatory power under the new Act, and can intervene in the private sector should it so choose.