My friend Stephanie (a former Duke student)
told me long after I received this message by e-mail that while Dr. Bonk
does teach chemistry at Duke, this story was most likely not true, but
it sure is a good story none the less...
Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taught for about a zillion years by
Professor Bonk (really), and his course is semi-affectionately known as
"Bonkistry." He has been around forever, so I wouldn't put it past him to
come up with something like this. Anyway, one year there were these two guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the
quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such that going into the final they
had a solid A.
These two friends were so confident going into the final that the
weekend before finals week (even though the Chem final was on Monday),
they decided to go up to UVirginia and party with some friends up there. So
they did this and had a great time. However, with their hangovers and
everything, they overslept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to
Duke until early monday morning. Rather than taking the final then, what
they did was to find Professor Bonk after the final and explain to him why
they missed the final. They told him that they went up to UVa for the
weekend, and had planned to come back in time to study, but that they
had a flat tire on the way back and didn't have a spare and couldn't get
help for a long time and so were late getting back to campus. Bonk thought
this over and then agreed that they could make up the final on the following
day. The two guys were elated and relieved.
So, they studied that night and went in the next day at the time that
Bonk had told them. He placed them in separate rooms and handed each of them
a test booklet and told them to begin. They looked at the first problem,
which was something simple about molarity and solutions and was worth 5
points. "Cool" they thought, "this is going to be easy." They did that
problem and then turned the page. They were unprepared, however, for what
they saw on the next page. It said:
(95 points) Which tire?
Heh. Two Guys, Different Rooms, The Answer had better be the same on
both tests... Which tire would you pick...
I picked Right Rear... You?
