Milwaukee Time Lords Blog

Jay Badenhoop is Professor of Chemistry at Potomac State College at West Virginia University, located in Keyser, WV. Jay also teaches astronomy. Jay has been sending to our members these real samples of student answers for the past year. “And the Doctor hangs his head in shame”.

This is his latest batch:

These are actual answers given by students on homework and exams. I swear I couldn’t make up ones this good. As usual, my comments to myself are in brackets.

A problem with reflecting telescopes is you need light pointed at the mirror in order to see so if you block out this light with your big head you won’t be able to see anything.

Q:Which types of light in the electromagnetic spectrum are mostly blocked from reaching the Earth’s surface by the atmosphere?

A:Radiation is blocked from entering Earth’s atmosphere. [It is? D'oh!]

A:The Earth has windows in the atmosphere that lets some kinds of light in.

[Only if the windows have curtains.]

Q:Which types of light in the electromagnetic spectrum are mostly blocked from reaching the Earth’s surface by the atmosphere?

A:X-rays, Y-rays, and Z-rays.

[But A-rays through W-rays get through. Everyone knows S-rays cause sunburn and C-rays cause cancer. Correct answer: Light with short wavelengths is blocked - ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays (the student confused the Greek letter gammag with "Y"). There is no "Z-ray" but there is a "Z particle".It's not as funny when there's an explanation, is it?]

Q:How is this light blocked?

A:Light can become blocked by solids, like plastics and metals.

[There are big chunks of plastic and metal floating up in the atmosphere?There must be more mid-air plane crashes than I thought.]

spectral lines - Black lines that papaer in the light spectrum.

[Appear? Paper? Sorry, I don't do anagrams.]

The wavelength is measured in centiminters.

[*I* measure wavelength in pepperminters!]

The wavelength is a symbol that looks like a “V” with a tail on top.

[The symbol is lambda (l).Come to think of it, it *does* look like a "V" with a tail on top...]

wavelength - the distance between the climax of one wave to the climax of the next wave.

[If your mind is warped, you might read something naughty into this. The student meant "crest" of the wave.]

frequency - amount of waves in a given time to pass through a rigid fixed unit. [Now just a minute.You're thinking something naughty again, aren't you?]

Q:Planets radiate most of their light in the infrared.Why are they visible to humans in the night sky?

A:Planets are made of warm colors, which are the coolest, which will stand out against the dark night sky with stars mostly being in the cool colors, which are the warmest.

[huh?]

Reflecting teleoscopes are different from refracting telloscopes because they have mirorrs that reflect incomming light. [Will you *please* use spell-check already!]

light pollution - happens when an area has too much civilization.

[true - I just like the way he said it.]

light pollution - What causes astronomers to move their telescopes to an abandoned area. [You can only see the night sky if all the other people have moved away.]

light pollution - Astronomers have to fight with states, cities, electrical companies, towns, architects, ect, in order to limit the amount of light. [This means war!]

The similarities between a refracting and reflecting telescope are slim to none.

Another advantage of the Hubble Space Telescope is that it is literally in space already so it’s a lot easier to look at space.

The frequency of infrared light sits just below red light.

[My mother's Christmas decorations sit just below the red light.]

Ultraviolent light is called that because it is violent against your skin.

Radiation comes from stars in the throws of death that explode and give off comic rays.

[Stars throw pies in your face?Also known as "Three Stooges rays".]

focal length - A distance of infinity objects from their images. Astronomical objects are so far away they might as well be at infinity.

[And your grade is so low, it might as well be zero.]

right ascension - also known as RA. [And...?]

Q:List the circumpolar constellations. [ones that circle the North Star]

A:Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Cepheus, Draco, Cassiopeia, Corona Borealis, and Scrotum.

[Yes, right, yes, right, yes, okay. wait - what was that last one? The name is "Scutum" which means "shield", but sounds almost as naughty. It only has *two stars*, so how anyone saw a Roman shield, or any shape for that matter, is beyond me.]

Q:Can you conclude that because the stars in a constellation appear close together in the sky, that they are at nearly the same distance from Earth?

A:No, because we really know nothing.

[Perhaps *you * don't.I think *we* know a little more than nothing about stars.]

Q: Why do stars observed close to the horizon twinkle more than those overhead?

A: They are more different from their surroundings.[huh?]

vernal equinox - the date when the sun crosses the o boundary moving northward.

[The sun only crosses the o'boundary over Ireland. I have no idea what the student intended. The sun crosses the *celestial equator*.]

vernal equinox - point where the sun crosses the eclipstic going south to north.

[You put on eclipstick when you and your date go out to watch a solar eclipse. Eclipstick only comes in one color - black. The word is "ecliptic" which is the Sun's path relative to the stars. Since the Sun can't cross its own path, the student's definition is bogus even if you correct the spelling error.]

Earth’s core - center composed of nickel-iron alloy, one of the less hot stars in the solar system. [Earth is a star? There is a star at the center of the Earth?I think this student probably was distracted in the middle of writing this sentence.]

Continential drift is when the continence slide across the Earth’s surface, explained as a set of shifting regions called tectonic planets. [The other planets slide against the Earth?

Their relationship must be more than gravitational, nudge nudge say no more!And when continents move, does it cause incontinence?]

My answer to global warming is to create cleaner artificial clouds and take out the polluted particles, but create polluted clouds, through making a cleaner environment.

[Huh? Who you gonna call? Cloudbusters!]

Q:Describe the layers to Earth’s atmosphere. Which layer(s) contain(s) ozone?

A:The Earth’s ozone lies within the Inner Solid Core. Then there is the Outer Molten Core, which is made up of molten hot magma. Then there is the D layer. Then there is the Lower Mantel, Mesosphere, and Lithosphere.

[There is ozone at the center of the Earth and molten hot magma in the air? Obviously this student skipped over the word *atmosphere*.]

The temperature of the atmosphere decreases with attitude.

[Yeah, the atmosphere's a real bitch when it's cold.]

libration - a swinging motion, real or not, of the moon.

[It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing! Doo-wop doo-wop! Libration is the apparent rocking motion of the Moon (when you look at time-lapse photography) caused when the Moon moves faster when closer to Earth and slower when farther away but it remains rotating at the same rate.]

sidereal month - month of days for the Moon to orbit counted in sidereals.

[Wasn't "Frankie and the Sidereals" a '50's pop group that recorded "Fly Me to the Moon"?]

crater - a simple bowl on the moon of 15 kilometers diameters.

[All craters are the same size and are used to eat giant cereal. The constitution says all men are cratered equal.]

crater - Very large hole in the ground.

[Pesky moon gophers!]

Q:Why is an astronaut’s weight standing on the Moon only 1/6th the weight he had on Earth?

A:His relationship to the moon would be greater than his relationship to the Earth.

[What kind of relationship? Do they get married or just fool around?]

Q:What were some weaknesses of the lunar module?

A:You could run out of full very quickly.

[How can you run out if it's full?]

Q:What causes the blackout in communications during re-entry?

A:The extremely high temperatures fad the communications with mission control.

[Don't worry; it's just a passing fad.]

Moon landing hoaxers believe that the spacecraft would have disincarnated upon entering the moon surface. [No, it would have been reincarnated as a toaster.]

The Apollo missions could not of been fake. A conspiracy of that magnet tide to been done is almost impossible. [Yeah, it would have taken a lot of really *big* magnets.]

All crediblitty for everyone against the Moon landing because they used an ample amount of rhettoric and fallacies in order to persuade you of their views, not to inform you what so ever.

[Rhettoric is what Rhett Butler uses in "Gone With the Wind". You don't believe in the moon landings?Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.]

One strange happening during the Apollo 11 mission was sightings of strange injects floating around the spacecraft.

[That's what happens when you shoot up cocaine in space.]

When astronauts first arrived in space the seen something in the distance but was really afraid to say anything to mission control because they did not want to be thought of as guys who seen aliens when they arrived back at earth.

[It wasn't aliens, it was the cocaine.]

Three days into space, the command center missed a message from the astronauts wanting to know where the hell they were at.

[Maybe the mission control guys were high on crack, too. Tune in next week for more "Sordid Secrets of the Space Program".]

Didn’t get enough of that last post. Here’s more! The Doctor would be ashamed of these students! (Or how NOT to qualify for the role of the Doctor’s assistant.)

STUDENT MALACHEMISMS #7

Here is another set of actual quotes from chemistry student exams, homework, and lab reports. [Again, my comments to myself are in brackets.]

 

Q: Give the name for the following elements:
   V (vanadium)
vanilla         [Sorry, not an element.]
vitamin       [Are you joking?]
valium        [The calming element.]
vanium       [They make vans out of it.]
venerium    [Gives you a sexually transmitted disease.]

 

   Sn (tin)
sandium     [What sand is made of.]
standous    [Element that never sits down.]
sinium        [The evil element.]

 

   Si (silicon)
sillium        [The silly element.]
silicious     [It's delicious!]

Rubbing alcohol is used as a tropical antisceptic.
[No, the tropical antiseptic is rum.  Have enough and you won't feel a thing.]

The specific heat of a substance is how many jewels it takes to heat the substance. 

[Diamonds are a substance's best friend.  That's *Joules*, a unit of heat.]

 

Q:  How do you make a supersaturated solution?
A:  You make a supersonic solution by adding too much solid to the solvent

but be careful it can be broken easily.
[You heat the solution, dissolve more solid, then cool slowly.]

 

Q:  What is the specific heat of a substance?
A:  It’s the value that I used in the equation.  [What equation?]
A: The total amount of heat in a sub.  [They toast subs at Subway now.]

 

The sample is irradiated with UZ light.  [From the Wizard of Uz? 

Does UZ stand for "ultrazippy"?]

 

The liquid mixture is poured into a separatory funnel and the querulous layer drained out.
[I had to think about this one.  "Querulous" means "peevish; frequently expressing a complaint or grievance".  In all of my years of teaching chemistry, I have never had a chemical solution complain.  The word is *aqueous* layer, which means a water solution.]

 

The percent yeild was less than 100% because the equation didn’t react.

 

The unknown liquid was not very density.

 

Q:  Why was salt added to the solution?
A:  It makes it more possible for water more accurately.  [huh?]

 

Add 20 mL of a statuated sodium chloride solution.
[Statuated?  Made into a statue?  That's *saturated*.]

 

The fumes in this lab were very fowl smelling.  [Smelled like chicken?]

 

Turpentine did not dissolve in the water because they were not combatable.
[Pacifists never dissolve.  *compatible*]

 

When the cap is removed from the soda, you release all the Co² crammed into the soda. 

[Cobalt squared?  That's *CO2*.]

 

Q:  Name three solutions found in your home.
A:  Blecch tea and Liquid Plummer.
[Really bad tea and Christopher Plummer?  Do you mean bleach?]

 

Q:  When a solution forms, where do the ions or molecules of solute go?
A:  They make new molecules.

[They get pregnant and have baby molecules?]
A:  When you dissolve something, the molecules of water are pulled apart.
[Hulk smash water molecules!]
A:  They go into the air.  [They escape?]
[Answer: They go between the molecules of solvent.]

 

The solution will seperate into layers if left idol.  [American Idol?]

 

The solution is hearted until it comes to a boil.  [All you need is love.]

 

Q:  Suppose you had a 10% salt solution.  How could you increase the percentage to 12% without adding more salt?
A:  Place the salt into less water.
[Hmm, travel back in time and decide to use less water in the first place.  That's a unique answer.  Answer: Evaporate some of the solvent until concentration is 12%.]

 

Q:  A lollipop left around for a while becomes sticky.  Why does this happen?
A:  It becomes unbalanced.
[No, children who eat too much candy get a sugar rush and become unbalanced.
Answer:  The lollipop is a supersaturated solution (more solute than is normally stable) and when exposed to water, the unstable structure begins to break down.]

 

Melting is a change of state of matter solid to liquid by adding heast.
[Is that heat or yeast?]

 

Fish donut remove the oxygen atoms from H2O.  [Fish eat donuts?]

  

Students wrote papers based on an American Chemical Society talk “Molecules to Mozzerella: The Chemistry of Cheese”:

 

Cheese making is a long process.  First you have the cow.
[You have to give birth to the cow yourself?  No wonder it takes so long.  Actually, first primitive organisms had to evolve for millions of years into mammals to make the cow.  The process takes even longer than you thought.]

 

Milk is pasturized so all the unwanted bacteria are killed of.
[Killed of what?  The milk is put out to pasture?]

 

The presentation started by the speaker having a cow.
[Bart Simpson: "Don't have a cow, man."  He showed a picture of a cow.]

 

The circumstances involving the cow are far from simplistic.
[What trouble's old Bessie got herself into now?]

 

The agging room is where cheese is put to age.

[I want to know where the *youthing* room is.]

 

Cheese making endures some meticulous but ends with time consuming steps to induce a flavored delight.  [huh?]

 

The perception of cheese as a large produced food is somewhat unapparent but should be appreciated as a form of art.  [Cheese sculptures?]

 

The smell of the cheese can be measured with a gastromeatograph.
[Cheese contains meat?  That's a *gas chromatograph* which separates
and measures the amounts of different gases in a vapor mixture.]

 

A soft cheese known as Kamelbear cheese smells like stinky feet.
[That's what you get when you cross a camel with a bear.  *Camembert*]

 

The pie curd is mixed in stainless steal bowls.
[The bowls are stolen?  There is a lemon curd pie and a cheesecake, but what is pie curd?]

 

The speaker informed us that it is impossible to make cheese from human breast milk.  Otherwise there would be many hungry babies.
[Am I the only one who finds that a bit creepy?]

 

Starter cultures play an important roll in the production of cheese.
[Cheese tastes good on rolls.]

 

Some semi-soft cheeses are mold ripened like stilton or rotford.
[Yes, mold leads to rot, but the name is *Roquefort*.]

 

The speaker’s intention was to impact into us the process of cheesemaking.
[He had a powerful left hook.  Pow! Whack! Cheddar!]

 

If Swiss cheese is made to quickly it will explode.
[Used by all the best cheese suicide bombers.]

 

The block of cheese is cut into peaces.
[And that's how the Great Cheese War ended.]

 

Once again Milwaukee Time Lords member, Jay Badenhoop presents us with more real samples of student answers to science questions. I include everything in Jay’s email to me, including the amusing disclaimer.

Here is another set of actual quotes from chemistry student exams, homework, and lab reports.

These are presented anonymously so no students were embarrassed (though maybe they should be).

[Again, my thoughts to myself are in brackets.]

 

On a 3-D molecular model-building exercise:

There is a symmetry plane between the center carbon atom.  [Do you know what "between" means?]

 

Q: When you change to the other chair conformation [of dichlorocyclohexane], are the chlorine atoms now axial or equatorial?
A: They’re trans.  [That wasn't one of the choices!]
Q: Now move one chlorine atom from carbon 2 to carbon 3.  Are the chlorines cis or trans?
A: They’re axial.  [D'oh!]
[On his tax forms, where it says "married, divorced, or single?", he answers "yes".
On my tax forms I select the option "Married filing double jointed, nudge nudge say no more!".]

 

Do not get benzoic acid in your eyes or it will cause digestive track irritation.  [Did you swallow your eyes?]

 

Inhaling benzoic acid may cause respiratory tract infection.  [No, it is a powder, not a bacterium.]

 

Insert the sample tube into the hating element.  [Make love not hate.]

 

        Part C: Indentation of an Unknown Solid.  [It is already indented - see?]

 

There was a lot of error due to missing the begging and end of the melting range.

[If the melting range begs, they put it out of its misery.  Don't miss it!]

 

The appartus was too slow and drug out the whole experiment.  [Maybe it was high.]

 

We will find the solubility of a coefficient in water.  [A coefficient is a number.  You mean you can dissolve numbers in water?  I think you mean "find the solubility coefficient".]

 

The mixture is shaked.   [No.]
The mixture is shook.    [No, try again.]
The mixture is shooked.  [No.]
The mixture is shooken.  [Still no.]
The mixture is shucken.  [Nope, you're getting colder.]
The mixture is shucked.  [No, you shuck corn, not mixtures.]
The mixture is shaken.   [Finally one person got it right!]
[Das Mischung ist geschücken, yavoll, mein Herr!]

 

Make sure you open the top between shakies or it might explode.  [Jinkies!]

 

You have to open the bottom because the pressure in the mixture has to relieve itself.

 

The benzoic acid was not quit pure enough.  [You shouldn't quit.]

 

My melting point was too high.  It must of been my equipptment.  [Or your spelling.]

 

The layers were easy and easy to see.  [Yeah, feelin' easy...]

 

Q: Why should you not use a bunsen burner to evaporate ether from the benzoic acid solution?
A: The flame could ignite the ethanol.  [Last time I checked, ether and ethanol were two different substances.]
A: Because it would burn the benzoic acid down.  [The big bad wolf burned it down.]
[Real answer: The ether is highly flammable!]

 

If you overheat the solution, something bad will happen.

[Can you be any more vague?  You'll upset the karma of the universe, man.]

 

Q: What could cause the recovery of benzoic acid to be less than 100%?
A: A mistake.  [You mean like taking this class?]
A: Some could have been lost when it was put on a watchglass and kept in my drawer.
[Alakazam, benzoic acid vanished!  It's magic!  Maybe the drawer has a trap drawer.]

 

The density of the object is its density.  [I yam what I yam.  Master of the obvious.]

 

The density is less dense than the density it is floating in.  [Huh?]

 

Water always has a density of 1 even if you have a lake.  [But not if you have a pond?]

 

Density is all ways constant.  [No, some times it deep ends on temperature.]

 

A psychometer is used to measure density.
[No, a *pycnometer* is used to measure density; a *psychometer* is used to measure insanity.]

 

It doesnt mater how much watter you put in the graduated cylinder.  [The t wandered.]

 

A 50 mL sample of ether is wadded to the funnel.  [Like a wad of cotton? added?]

 

I measured the volumn of the column.

 

Q: Why does a steel bar sink, but a steel ship floats?
A: Because the ship is on the ocean.  If you take a cruise, you feel happy and more buoyant so the ship floats.

 

The release of clouroflourocarbons caused depletion of the ozone lawyer.  [Ozone lawyers only take cases in the upper atmosphere.  We already have too many lawyers; it wouldn't hurt to deplete a few.  Clouroflourocarbons are baked with flour and "clour"?  It's spelled

"chlorofluorocarbons".]

 

Global warming causes floods and droughts that kill everything in it’s awake.

[Then go back to sleep.  It was all a bad dream.]

 

The media creates excitements and false postulations from the population.

[I thought you get false postulations from a bad pregnancy test.]

 

The media sometimes uses only a portion of the data witch gives erroneous results.

[And it uses witchcraft to make up the rest.]

 

If we reverse global warming, then we’d have global cooling and the media would thrive on stories about that.  [Sad but probably true.  Students sure don't trust the media.]

 

We humans have put a dent in the plant life on earth.

[Don't worry, we have auto insurance for that.]

 

Global warming will raze the water level of the earth.

[Don't worry, we can use a razor to shave it down again.]

 

If we don’t do something about global warming, it will have a snowball effect.

[Don't worry, the snowballs will make it cooler.]

 

Jay Badenhoop

 

No trees were killed in the sending of this message.
However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Our member and current Vice President of the Milwaukee Time Lords, Carl Féthière, has created a video of images taken at our 20th Anniversary Dinner, which was held August 15th, 2009. This is our first club YouTube post. You can help out by joining YouTube and posting a comment.

I checked the latest Doctor Who news a day after the Wisconsin State Fair event to see that some of the San Diego ComicCon panelists were still in the area. At least one looking for work! (I think you can guess by now who that could be.)

I have the BBC Doctor Who news feed in my Yahoo page. You can get yours if you go to the news site and get instructions and the link there. It’s very handy in making sure you get the most current and accurate news.

The item that caught my attention was the BBC Wales broadcasts in two parts of reports from Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and David Tennant regarding their experiences at ComicCon and subsequent ventures in Southern California. (I grew up there back in the 60’s and 70’s, up to 1974.)

Start here to read about David Tennant’s Tales from Hollywood.

Apparently, that stint he did as Casanova opens doors for him, as you will hear when you download and listen to the two part report.

Written and contributed by MTL member Jay Badenhoop (was the first Editor in Chief of our newsletter, the Relative Times).  As you will note, this teacher is a stickler for spelling.  A misspelled word is considered a mistake since it changes the meaning of the answer.  This could be another reason that the Doctor is no longer accepting companions.  An assistant who did this poorly in school would have a hard time coping with his Tardis and its technology.  “Don’t touch that hand when it’s glowing like that — it’s dangerous!”

---

A bumper crop of errors to end the year. Remember these are actual answers given by students. I think some students would find their own mistakes funny if they proofread (or even spell-checked) their homework before handing it in. One consistent thread is that students tend to give inanimate objects (planets, moons, stars, galaxies, etc.) human characteristics and motivations. As always, my comments to myself are in brackets.

Planets move faster than planets orbiting low mass planets of same differences. [huh?]

Q:  If two planets have the same mass but orbit at different distances from the Sun, which will have the greater orbital speed?  Why?
A:  The one farther away because there is gravity between the tow planets. [Did they use a tow truck?  Actually the one closer moves faster.]

Q:  If the planets condensed out of the same primeval nebula as the Sun, why did the Sun become a star, but the planets did not?
A:  The nebula had a tilt to their axis which increased they’re speed; thus creating planets.  [huh?]
A:  The star energy causes the nebula to dive off revealing the materials planets, comets and asteroids.  [Huh?  It went diving?]
A:  The planets were not massive enough to heat to cause a nuclear fission rection like the sun.  [I hope she meant *reaction*.]

Q:  What characteristics of Mercury could be better observed by spacecraft observations than Earth-based observations?
A:  A magnetic field full of elections was detected in space near Mercury. [McCain won the presidential elections on Mercury.  Electrons?]

The Opportunity rover has inspected craters to reveal inter-dune playa lakes that have evaporated for the sands of years. [I'm cool, I'm a playa.  Do you mean *thousands* of years?  Or the lakes evaporated for years and left sand?  Like sands of the hourglass, these are the Days of Our Lives.]

Olympus Mons - a volcano formed on Mars millions of years ago by Mariner 9. [Mariner 9 went back in time and somehow created the volcano?  It was *discovered* by Mariner 9.  A missing word can make a big difference!]

Venus’s surface must be explored using raider waves.  [That's *radar*.]

Venus has much more carbon dioxide because of all the vulcans erupting there. [Vulcans?  Captain Kirk to Mr. Spock - are you ready to beam up?  I thought Vulcans had no emotions and only erupted during pon farr (Star Trek inside joke).]

The characteristics of Mercury are almost not visible by the Earth this is called see inset.  [The student copied this incorrectly from a webpage which had a small picture of Mercury in the corner (an inset) and the text said to "see inset".]

The canali on Mars was thought to be channels yet now is known that to be channels.

The planet witch has two moons is Mars, called Phobus and Diemus. [The wicked witch has them?  Phobos and Deimos.]

Q:  Does Mercury always keep the same side toward the Sun?
A:  No Mercury does not keep the same side because it rotates off it’s axis. [It's also off its rocker.]
A:  Mercury rotates tree times for each too times it goes around the Sun. [And the Moon rotates won time for every won time around the Earth.]

Flowing water does not exist on Mars two day. [But it did three days ago?  Maybe this student should swap with the previous one - too-two tutu!]

The Mars Pathfinder mission found that deposits in gullies suggest they were formed by sentiment in the last 7 years.  [They were formed by sentiment when the gods cried.  Seven years?  Really?  More like seven million!]

greenhouse effect - when sunlight enters an atmosphere but is absorbed by the planet and the atmosphere is so full of its own infrared. [The atmosphere has a really big ego.  It's so full of itself.]

Scientists are interesting in finding water on Mars.
[I think scientists are interesting, too.]

The problem they had with the rovers is because the sun is not always around when you’re on Mars.  [The Sun wanders off.]

Q:  Explain the absence of water on Mars, despite the presence of features that seem to have been formed by water.
A:  The sun came out and dried up all of the water supply. [No, it goes, "The sun came out and dried up all the rain, and the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again!]

Great Red Spot - Cloud in the shape of a big oval candy dish and the atmosphere is wispy like cotton candy. [I would like to live in this student's fantasy world.]

Q:  What makes Saturn’s moon Titan unique among moons of the solar system?
A:  Stuff in the atmosphere makes it comically complex.
[What stuff?  Rubber chickens, pies in the face, and whoopie cushions?  I think she meant *chemically* complex.]

prominences - solar material extending between sunspots, often confused with solar flares by mere mortals.

Prominences streetch between sunspots.
[Wasn't Streetch the nerd on "Saved by the Bell"?]

The solar core is where nuclear fussion occurs.
[Isn't fussion what babies do?]

The Sun is burning mostly hydrogen at this stage of its lift.
[No, for heavy lifting you want to burn carbohydrates, not hydrogen.]

Q:  What are sunspots and what causes them?
A:  Sunspots are where the sun surface gets wounded to the point of a puncture.
[The Sun is a ball of gas, but it's not a beach ball!]

There were very few sunspots during the period 1645-1715.  This period coincided with much colder weather and a drought in the southwestern United States.  [OK, except that there was no United States until at least 1776!  And even then United States was only along the east coast.  Of course, before 1776 all sunspots were British.]

Q:  Why is the solar spectrum an absorption spectrum (dark lines)?
A:  The lines are asbortion becuase the are asborbed by gasses in the the
photoshpeere.
[Could you include more spelling errors, please?  I don't know what an asbortion
is, but it sounds really painful!]

Q:  How can we learn about the interior of the Sun by studying its surface?
A:  The clue is in all that shaking.  By studying the way the Sun shakes, we can get a lot of information about the interior.  [Shake it, baby, shake it!]

main sequence - the stage of a star’s life comparable to the adult hood stage in humans.  [The adult hood stage follows the Red Riding Hood stage.]

supernova - a star that regurgitates, then explodes.  [That happens when it drinks too much.  It regurgitates and explodes into the toilet.]

supernova - when a dying star explodes in a glorious bust.
[It has plastic surgery.]

neutron star - star that has collapsed due to neuron degeneracy.
[*Neutron* degeneracy is when the gravity of a collapsing star fuses all particles into neutrons.  *Neurons* are in your brain.  Is your brain degenerating?]

quasar - a very large redshirt object that is almost stellar in appearance.
[It looks absolutely stellar fabulous in its big red shirt.  That's *redshifted*. Redshift is the change of the wavelengths of light emitted by an object toward the red part of the spectrum.]

The luminosity of a star depends on the size of pie.
[Apple pie?  It depends on temperature T and area = (r2 (though usually pi are round - old math joke).]

The galactic halo is home to vast numbers of small, unseen bodies known as NACHOs.  [The galaxy gets the munchies.  *MACHOs* are MAssive Compact Halo Objects.]

The Wilkinson team is putting a probe into space to find were matter is in the universe.  [Is were-matter like werewolves?  They will probably discover were-matter is on the full moon.]

In a closed universe, the universe will crash and be no more.
[The universe ends in a car accident?]

Q:  What is the difference between an optical double star and a binary double star?
A:  An optical double star is a optical illusion.  [It's not really there.]
A:  A binary double star is held together by unknown forces.
[It's a mystery.  Ever heard of a little thing called gravity?]

Q:  At what wavelength and color does a B-type star have its maximum absorption?
A:  The wavelength is zero and the color is dark blue.
[If the light has a wavelength of zero, it doesn't exist!  And it can't be dark!]

Q:  What is the relationship between a star’s color and what the spectrum looks like?
A:  The orange star is on an uphill climb, but the blue star is mostly a downward slop.

Q:  What transitions do the lines labeled labeled H?, H?, and H? correspond to?
A:  They correspond to electrons jumping.  [Boing boing boing boing!]

Q:  What features do the spectra of the fourteen sample stars have in common?
A:  All of them have a peak in intensity and a lot of noise of differing fuctuations.
[I could make a naughty remark here about what kind of noise, but I will restrain myself.]

Q:  Do you think the 20 brightest stars makes up a good random sample of stars?  Why or why not?
A:  I’m not sure.  I’m ignorant about samples of stars.  [Well, at least he's honest.]

There is actually a high percentage of irregular galaxies there is.

When a star can’t fusion any more, the burning stops then it emplodes under the emince gravity.

Can the blackhole [at the center of the galaxy] wipe us out?  It depends on what it eats.  Scientists are worried and are tracking it to see if it is now being dormant or if it is ready to eat.
[Munch munch munch.  It's coming for us...  Actually astronomers believe the Milky Way galaxy's black hole is very old and has established a stable system with the stars that orbit around it.]

Q:  How can we tell whether other galaxies are moving toward or away from us?
A:  Other galaxies are moving away because they are read shifty.
[Yeah, they look very suspicious.  That's *redshifted*.]

Q:  What shape do most galaxies have?
A:  Most galaxies are dwarf elliptical.  We’ve got millions of millions dwarf ellipticals.  [Should we call an exterminator?]

Q:  How would the Milky Way appear if the Sun was located near the center of the galaxy?
A:  The Sun would not be visible because it would be too far away.
[Yes, the Sun is moved to the center of the galaxy and the Earth would stay here.  (Actually, that is the plot of an episode of "Doctor Who".)  Obviously I have to make the question more specific to say what if the *whole solar system* was near the center of the galaxy.]
A:  If the Milky Way was closer to the center of our galaxy the sun would enplode into the galaxy dying due to the gravitional pull of the Black Hole.  [Noooooooo!]

However, it’s not only students that don’t proofread their answers well enough. I found this listing for a National Geographic Channel program in the online TV Guide:

NGC 120  Thu, Mar 12
Naked Science
10:00 PM Journey to Juniper
Examining the findings from recent missions to Juniper and its largest moons.
[Berries grow on juniper bushes, not moons!]

Every year in March is our club’s “Safehouse” month.  Since we’ve been meeting, The Safehouse has been one of our favorite and well-attended events.  This year, I estimate about 20 people will attend, but who can say with Bistro Mathematics which deals with the difficulty in predicting the number of people who will be present at a dinner reservation.

For those who are not in the Milwaukee area or not hip to famous celebrity hangouts, The Safehouse is a spy-themed bar & restaurant.  (Note, if you enter that site, you may have to eat your loaded webpage before leaving or use the clean Internet temp files utility if you are the techie type.)  Finding the correct door to enter is the first challenge.  You’ll need a friend to help you!  Once inside, Control will ask you for a passphrase (not telling here!).  If you fail to provide it, Control will ask you to perform a silly stunt that will be publicly visible within the establishment.   Once you pass the test, you will gain admittance.

From there, you can proceed to the bar or you can hang around the area with various types of seating arrangements.  You can wait for your party to gather in one of the booths or dens that appeals to you most.  There, you can order your favorite drinks and appetizers, while you mingle with your party and marvel at what you will find on the walls and ceiling.  Watch and laugh at arriving friends and strangers who are compelled to do silly stunts via the monitors.

There are various gags and jokes everywhere and interesting artifacts on display, all fitting the spy/mystery theme.  A good friend will point them out to you.  If you don’t hear anything from an experienced Safehouse visitor, then start to worry that you may be left to discover these gags on your own.

If you have reserved a dinner reservation, you will be escorted to your table or tables depending upon your party size.  The selections range from moderately priced, if you are on a budget, to higher priced.  The website has a lunch and dinner menu, if you prefer to read it before going.  I find it too dark to read menus in low light restaurants so I like to come prepared with the item I want already selected.

In the past I’ve ordered the barbeque pork ribs dinner (excellent!) and one of the hamburger plate options (the barbeque & bacon option).  Each dinner comes with a choice of sides.  I typically order a soft drink.  There are non-alcoholic versions of a few fruit-based drinks, cleverly named on the menu.

Your dinner is not complete until you’ve had one of the decadent dessert options.  (If it does not contain ice cream it can be boxed and taken home.)  My favorite dessert is a “bomb” - a ball of mint chip ice cream covered completely in “magic shell” topping and a lit candle embedded deep within the ice cream that you have to “defuse”.  It’s the kind of candle that does not blow out, so you have to come up with a creative candle-dousing method.  (I use a straw and water trapped within, though I am curious to know what my new sonic screwdriver with UV light would do . . .)  If you let the candle burn too far down, you get that awful wax all over your ice cream that you have to pick out or eat.

While you are dining, look at your table and what’s hanging on the walls.  Various famous persons have visited and left their autographed photos.  If you know anyone who is celebrated in any way, this is the coolest place to say that you’ve been and left something behind for future visitors to see.

If you are looking for a unique dining experience, then come the The Safehouse, located in Milwaukee’s East Side, across from the Milwaukee River and on Wells St., across the street from the beautiful Pabst Theatre.  (That’s all I can say — you’ll have to visit that link above and read the agreement yourself!)

Here’s our next installment of our member Jay Badenhoop’s actual answers from actual students taking an astronomy test.  Some are various answers given to short answer questions.  Others are definition of terms.  The teacher (Jay) gives his comments and thoughts located in brackets just after the student answers.

If you know of any other sites or collections like this, please share.

STUDENT ASTRONOMISMS #5

These are actual homework and exam answers from Astronomy students.

What were they thinking?

Q:  Why did Ptolemy include epicycles (smaller circles) in the planets’ orbits in his theory of the Universe?
A:  He had to think of a way or else the planets would just be floating out there in space aimlessly.
A:  The Earth has its own bicycles, so the other planets had to have something.
[Made by Schwinn?]

Q:  Why must astronomers and geologists study extraterrestrial bodies to learn about the first billion years of the solar system?
A:  Extraterrestrial bodies show the difference between humans and aliens and how they’ve survived.
[No, not that kind of body!  You've been watching too many documentaries about UFOs on the Discovery Channel. And who do you mean survived, the humans or the aliens?  The aliens survived Roswell?  They walk among us! Call NASA!  The answer is that Earth is too geologically active, and even the oldest Earth rocks are not that old.]

constellation - one of 88 acres into which the sky has been divided there in.
[Green Acres?]
latitude - the degrees norgh or sound of the equator.  [Come on, use spell check already.]

Stars that are slosher to the horizon twinkle more than those over head.
[They're drunk?  I think she meant *closer*.]

Star charts are used to indentify the stars and planets.  [Indentify?  Sounds like a word George Bush made up.  I have to indentify my paragraphs.]

Q:  Why is the Earth divided into time zones instead of the entire planet having the same time?
A:  Without time zones we wouldnt be able to determine when the date changes and time would stop.

plate tectonics - theory of the Earth’s crust with plates moving because of rumblings beneath.  [I had rumblings beneath once, when I ate Texas chili.]

continential drift - The continents move in slow motion.  [instant replay]
continental drift - the continentals are gradually moves from its initial dwelling.  [huh?]
lithosphere - layer of the Earth composed of the curst and upper montel.
[It's cursed?  Montel Williams, the talk show host?  It's *mantle*.]
mantle - the layer of rock lying next to the core  [...or the *liar* of rock *laying* next to the core.  It just lies there.  Maybe it's dead.]

Q:  What is the source of heat and how is heat generated in the Earth’s core and mantle?
A:  Radioactive maternal in the earths interior.
[The Earth is having a radioactive baby?]

Q:  What are the layers to Earth’s atmosphere?  Which layer(s) contain(s) ozone?
A:  Earth’s One Atmosphere this is the first atmosphere.  The Troposphere is the weather atmosphere.  Above the Troposphere is the Stratosphere and mesosphere is the Ozone atmosphere.  [huh?]

Geothermal energy is a tapped energy source that is overflowing in some arrears.
[Overflowing in the rear?  Earth has a big booty?]

crater - a dent in the moon.  [A crater is usually a bit more than a dent!  I hit the Moon with my Buick and dented it.  I hope it has insurance!]
libration - apparent slight turn off the Moon.
[You turned the moon off?  That's turn *of* the Moon.  Effect by which we can see slightly more than half (59%) of the lunar surface even though the moon basically has one half that always faces us.]

sidereal month - the course it takes the moon to circular around the earth in a month’s quest.
[A quest?  What is it searching for?]
sidereal month - a month with respect to the side reals.
[Side rails for the handicapped?  Reminds me of the doctor who went out of business because the sign maker wrote, "DR. JOHNSON, THE RAPIST" instead of "THERAPIST".  A sidereal month is the time it takes the moon to orbit the Earth with respect to the stars, which is 27.3 days.]

Eclipses can occur only when the Sun, Moon, and Earth are in onion.
[Do you mean *union*?  What does that mean?  They have a threesome????]

Ingenous rocks are rocks that cooled from larva.
[*Igneous* rocks cooled from *lava*.]

Q:  How were the lunar maria [dark plains] formed?
A:  Through erosion.  [Huh?  Erosion from all those hurricanes they have on the Moon.]
A:  They were formed by ballistic lava that filled the crateors and caused spots on the moon.
[Ballistic, like from a gun?  Bang! Bang!  Call CSI to analyze the fragments.
I don't think any gun can reach that far.  No, that's *basaltic* lava flows.  Basalt is solidified lava.  And what kind of spots, acne?  Use Moonasil.]

The three Apollo 11 astronauts were:  Neal Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins.  Neal and Buzz walked on the Moon and made Mike stay in the shuttle.
[He was a bad boy.  Punishment was harsh in those days.  The moon landing was in 1969 and the shuttle wasn't put into service until 1981.  He had to wait hanging in space for 12 years...]

Q:  What instrument was left on the Moon’s surface by the Apollo 11 astronauts?
A:  An American flag.
[Not an instrument.  Try again.]
A:  A 3-D holographic imaging unit.
[This was 1969!  They had just developed the color video camera!]
A:  A size mommeter.
[Used for measuring how big your mother is?  That's *seismometer* which measures vibrational waves generated by geologic activity.]

Q:  Which theories of the Moon’s formation have been rejected, which one has been accepted, and *why*?
A:  Fission of the moon from the Earth.  Rejected because Earth’s speed is not significant to lunch the moon.  [The Moon might make a good lunch if it really was made of swiss cheese.  It does have holes...]
A:  My theory is that when satan and 1/3 of the angels got killed out of heaven (Jesus said that He saw satan fall as lightening, so this was not plant object but satan and 1/3 angels which God cause lightening to strike the earth and this is where the heat impact came from. I can accept this theory because Genesis tells us that the earth was void. When satan and 1/3 angels got kick out of heaven is before God begun to create things on the earth. This is what is known as the early earth.   [What does this say about where the Moon came from?  Are you saying the Moon is Satan?  This answer kind of scared me.]

I have a handy list of David Tennant (10th Doctor) video clips you can find on YouTube.

Enjoy!

SERIES 2

First Day On Job
More Christmas Invasion Filming
Even More Christmas Invasion Filming
Cardiff Christmas Lights
Christmas Invasion Broadcast
Billie Piper’s Last Scene Filming (grab a hankie for this one!)
Filming In A Quarry
First Dalek & Mini-Me!
Exploding the TARDIS
Series 2 Is Out

**Blackpool Illuminations (two parts)
PART 1
PART 2

Series 4 (two parts)
PART 1
PART 2

Bonus Clip — Weakest Link! (SPOILER: Winner is revealed at end. Watch up to 4:05 then watch Weakest Link on YouTube and then come back.)

**The City of Waukesha (my hometown) could have controlled the traffic lights in the event of such an emergency, too!  (I saw it in operation at one intersection while taking my sister home just the other day.)

MTL member Jay Badenhoop, who was the first editor of our club newsletter, has contributed his first material for our blog.  It is answers to test questions given by students and one response to a cheater at the end.

I’m so sorry (as the Doctor sometimes starts with when about to do something awful to an opponent), but the following piece may cause you either pain or sadness for the state of our education of our children.

You can do your part to help by going back to the International Year of Astronomy post and lending your support to that effort.  (I think the Doctor would want you to do something.  He had something to say about “dumbing down” in the third season episode 42)

[Convention - italicized words are the teacher's comments; term or question in bold]

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MORE STUDENT ASTRONOMISMS
Set #4

Stonehenge - Three pillar of stones with a stone circle people stood on to studied the stars.

geocentric - in the middle of the Earth.

epicycle - plants make small loops in their obits around the sun.
[The plants are dead?  Did you water them?]

ellipse - a cone plane passed through the side of the cone, not bottom.
[The Conehead family flies in cone planes.]

perihelion - the very end of a speed of a point orbiting the sun by its body.
[Huh?  It's the farthest point of a body in its elliptical orbit.]

period of revolution - length of time it takes for a plant to have one full revelation.
[A giant psychic gardenia?]

light pollution - an axis of light in the sky.  [no, that's *excess*!]

light pollution - a lot of light.

wavelength - different distances appear as different colors.
[That's the principle of 3-D glasses.]

wavelength - the distance from crest to crest or through to through a wave.
[Er, that's *trough* ("troff") like what a cow eats from.  Here, try reading this "ough"t loud: "Though it ought to be bought, the tough calf with the cough thought it was through eating dough thoroughly enough at the trough."  There are at least five different pronunciations of "ough" in that sentence.  That's English for you!]

infrared light - light that is redder than red.  [*really* red!]

Doppler effect - something caused by Dopplers
[Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting Dopplers...]

focal length - the length from the lens of a telescope to infinity.  [...and beyond!]

focal length - objects at infinity fall at a distance.
[huh?  Objects at infinity are closer than they seem.]

chromatic aberration - when light coming from a telescope makes you see rainbows.
[No, that's  a *mental* aberration.  It's when light of different wavelengths is focused to different points, so the colors appear blurred.]

focus - where light waves come to a focus.

Why are some wavelengths blocked from reaching the Earth’s surface?
Radiation is blocked from reaching the Earth’s surface.
[The last two from the "bleedin' obvious" school of astronomy.]

Info-red light is blocked by the O-Zone layer.
[The O-Zone is where the Wizard lives.]

Gumma rays are blocked by the Oziononic layer.

Which types of light in the electromagnetic spectrum are mostly blocked from reaching
the Earth’s surface by the atmosphere?
Opaque light is blocked from reaching the suns atmosphere.
[Did she think "opaque" is a color?  And confused the Sun with the Earth?]

Compare a refracting telescope to a reflecting telescope.
A: Reflecting telescopes have mirrors that magnatize light.  [I think she meant "magnify".]
A: Reflecting telephone use mirrors as the optics to focus and reflect light.
[And he uses the telescope to call his mother.]
A: The refracting telescope turns red light blue.  [It does?  Don't use it to look at traffic lights.]
A: The human eye is a refracting telescope.  A rearview mirror of a car is a reflecting telescope.  [Er, no. *Like* a telescope, maybe.]

Advantages of using the the Hubble telescope are as follows: saving money by limiting its ability to point at random positions in the sky; telescopes on Earth are limited but eh atmospheric “seeings;” the starlight is consentreated into smaller images with not amosheres above the telescope.  [Huh?]

How does light from a light bulb compare to that of natural light from the sun?
A: You shouldn’t look into the sun.  [But you *should* look directly into a light bulb?]
A: The wavelengths of the sun have more length then the light bulb.  [And they have less wave.]
A: Light from a light bulb is approx. 3000 K as opposed to the natural light of the sun which is approx. 5580 K.  [A light bulb is 3000 degrees, over half as hot as the sun?  Steel melts at around 1200 K.  The student's light bulb would melt the Earth's crust!]
A: A light bulb will become hot if left on for a long time, hotter than my fingers can stand so I cannot even imagine trying to change the sun right after it goes out.  [I sure hope this student was joking!]

Here is my answer to an unsuccessful cheater: “[Female student], the file you submitted for Activity #1.1 is a copy of Homework #1 (wrong assignment) submitted by [male student, her boyfriend] with his name on it!  You should do your own work.  I cannot accept this submission, so I must assign a score of zero.”  [Can you believe it?]

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