Problems from the previous century

School Science and Mathematics, Feb 2000 by Niess, Maggie, Lederman, Norm

Unfortunately, the Problems Section did not arrive in time for this issue. So the editors have found some problems printed in the previous century (sometime in the 1900s). Try these problems with your students. When do you think these problems were printed? Have we changed much in what we expect of students? In the next issue, we will print solutions submitted when the problems were originally printed.

Maggie Niess and Norm Lederman

Mathematics Problems

These problems came from the Problems Department published in the previous century. They are all mathematical in nature.

4. Given the line of base, mid-point of base, vertex, and vertex angle, construct the triangle. A geometrical solution is desired.

Science Questions

There was a section called "Science Questions" during the previous century. Here are some problems for you to consider from that section.

1. The average family uses 20 tons of water in a year, one tenth of which is used with soap. If the water is hard and contains .01 percent of calcium sulphate, what is the approximate value of soap wasted each year, supposing soap to be NaC^sub 18^H^sub 35^O^sub 2^? (A 5-cent cake of soap weighs about 10 ounces and often contains 20 percent of water.)

2. May the same bolt of lightning strike a building and at the same time kill stock in afield one-half mile distant?

Bugs for Biologists

Teachers of Biology - Ask these questions of your pupils and see what they say. (The following questions may sound foolish, but, if they do to you, read Instinct and Intelligence by Major R. W. G. Hingston and then send in your answers.)

Is an insect a rational being?

1. Can it reason from cause to effect?

2. Can it adapt means to ends?

3. Can it reflect on a course of action?

4. Can it do something ingenious?

5. Can it act with judgment?

6. Can it show resourcefulness?

7. Can it act with forethought?

8. Can it remember?

9. Can it imitate?

10. Can it learn from experience?

More for the Biologists

There lay the body. The man was known to have been subject to fits which would seize him and render him unconscious for sometimes two days at a time - but these were usual with him and he had been given many more years to live by the doctors. It was practically certain he had not died of one of these seizures. Then what had killed him?

He was found where he had fallen into a mass of tangled roots of the common pea, in a hole which had been recently dug. It was with some difficulty that they disentangled the vines, particularly from around his neck. Strangulation? Possibly, but these seizures were never known to cause the man to struggle when an attack came on - he simply dropped unconscious.

As there was not a mark on him, and no stones near for his head to hit, the cause had to be either the fit, or strangulation by cutting off his air supply.

The country farm agent commenced to study the mystery and finally came out with a most astonishing theory -- he claimed that at that time of year pea vines grew very rapidly. He also claimed that not only did they grow rapidly, but their strength was prodigious - that as they grew they could lift a 300-pound weight for every square inch exposed. He claimed that the heat of the man's body, along with a recent shower, and combined with the trophism of the roots to seek the ground again, cause them to crisscross over the man's throat, swell and strangle him when he was unconscious. This theory was finally accepted.

A. L. Hodges from Amazing Stories.

The above is what we might call "Scientification." Is it harmful to the scientific spirit to read it? Remember, teachers, that the above is far more interesting than a discussion of the "growth of pea vines." What use can be made of the Science in "Amazing Stories" and other such magazines?