🚀 go-pugleaf

One of our TA's has experienced some funny things in the freshmen
chemistry lab (including SCIENCE majors).

One day students were supposed to use Bunsen burners. A moment after the
start of the experiment the TA smelled a burner gas. She found four
students staring at wide-open burners. "What are you doing ?" - she asked.
"We're waiting for the fire !" - they replied.

Another time the students were supposed to measure 160 mL of water.
"It is impossible !" - one of them argued - "We have only 100 mL cylinders !"

One of students understood from the experimental procedure that a graduated
cylinder is a filtration device. "How should I form a paper filter to fit
the cylinder interior ?" - he asked.

After three titration experiments one of the students asked "What is 
titration ?"

The students were supposed to do very simple calculation during the
experiment, namely subtraction of two numbers. A few of them were
very disappointed - "You did not tell us we needed calculators !" -
argued with TA.

Funny ? For sure, better than Polish jokes :-)  But with such "educated"
people Japanese will always win the economic competition.

Robert Fraczkiewicz
Department of Chemistry
University of Houston