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.]

 

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.]

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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