Page 23 - Analog Circuit Design Art, Science, and Personalities

Barometers and Analog Design

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.
“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 I have a fine barometer. If you will tell me the
height of this 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, to use the
“scientific method,” and to explore the deep inner logic of the subject in a pedantic
way, as is often done in the new mathematics, rather than teaching him the structure
of the subject. With this in mind, he decided to revive scholasticism as an academic
lark to challenge the Sputnik-panicked classrooms of America.