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Longest Physics Lecture in History?
gfrege writes "Perhaps you remember some long physics lectures from your days at school. But as part of a general strike of students at the Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin concerning cuts in funding for the city's universities, some physicists are in the middle of what could be the longest physics lecture in history. It started at noon on Monday, and is planned to run to noon on Thursday. Check out the topics, and if you're in Berlin, come on down. The Babelfish translations of the lecture titles make for some fun reading, too, if you can't make it there yourself."
Back in the days when I went to school (up hill both ways) we had lectures that lasted all winter. We got to school on day, it snowed 30 feet, spring came, snow melted then we got to go home. And we LIKED it. back in the day.
Ride recklessly only when safe to do so.
Again sorry, but you know it's funny.
why? forty-two.
I remember many 3 day physics lectures -- unfortunately most were only one hour in length!!!
This sheds new light on the old "look left, look right, look left again" rule when crossing the street: In quantum, by looking at the cars, you can affect their positions!
Doesn't apply to me (I tried, nearly got run over). Maybe it works if you're blond...?
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” — Neal Stepnenso
1.) Here in Germany, higher education comes mostly for free, including attending University. This is paid for by state taxes, mostly.
2.) There is a huge financial crunch in local communities and the states (Laender), of which Berlin is one, due to prolonged blissful ignorance of reality (tax revenue down) in crazy public spending. Berlin is one of the worst candidates with huge debt, kind of like CA in the US, even suing federal gvt. to bail them out and unfortunately winning.
3.) Berlin has three full universities plus N colleges and such, sucking up money.
4.) what's an avg. politician to do? Slash university funding big style, amongst other things, potentially closing one of them down for good
5.) what's a university student to do? go on strike (IMO not very creative either, but I digress....) and generally raise awareness that higher education is worth its money.
6.) what's a prof to do? help students out (after all they're in the same boat), by e.g. holding a 3 day continuous physics lecture in the middle of Berlin, for everybody to attend.
That's why they're doing it. If you or I agree with it, is another question...
about as coherent as a professor awake for 1 hour
I do not understand why country's do not offer free college education for all.
Simple. Because educated people are harder to control. Those in positions of power want those who are not to be easier to control, easier to turn into mindless consumer zombies, easier to get to vote for whoever puts out the best commercials rather than has the best platform, etc.
Universal education challenges the new aristocracy, who believe that you shouldn't get anything unless you can pay through the nose for it. Of course, they can afford to, but no one else can.
And the society goes to hell for it, with them leading the way. Gotta love it.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
I believe what you're referring to must be Schachtelsatze, or "nested sentences", which indeed is a (quite obsolete) rhetorical style in german.
It's not used much, and if it is, it's generally in literature. Probably 95% of its useage is simply to show off, I'd assume.
It works basically more or less like this: you start a sentence, and at some word, where you'd like to add additional information about it, you start a subclause. In that one, you can do the same again. Effectively, you're embedding sentences within sentences. Since in German, the verb often comes at the end, once you're through, you must clean up by adding all the verbs at the end. So it's a bit like pushing and popping indeed.
An artificial, exaggerated example was taken from here:
german:
Schon immer mal wollte ich einen Satz, der zwar grammatikalisch richtig gebildet, jedoch durch die Anfugung von Nebensatzen, die durch ein Komma, welches das Verb bzw. das Hilfsverb, das dieserart jeweils erst nach dem Schachtelsatz, der eigentlich den Zusammenhang, der ebenfalls im Nebensatz, der kurz vor dem Verb, welches das Satzende, das das Verb bzw. das Hilfsverb, das durch das bereits genannte Komma, das ja die Nebensatze, die eingeschachtelt worden sind, abschachtelt, ineinander verschachtelt wurde, endlich bringt, wieder entschachtelt, verschachtelt worden ist, erklart wird, erklaren sollte, genannt wird, somit einschachtelt, getrennt werden, verschachtelt wird, ist, formulieren.
english, (almost) german word order:
I always wanted a sentence, which however gramatically corrently formed, but through the addition of subclauses, that are with a comma, which the verb or the auxiliary verb, which in this way each time only after the nested clause, that actually the context, that also in the subclause, that shortly before the verb, which the end of sentence, which the verb or the auxiliary verb, which through the previously mentioned comma, which now the the subclauses, which have been nested, nests in, has been nested in each other, finally mentions, de-nests again, has been nested in, is explained, should explain, is mentioned, therefore nests in, are separated, is nested in, is, to formulate.
english, understandable (sort-of):
I always wanted to formulate a sentence, that is formed gramatically correct, but that is nested in through the addition of subclauses. These subclauses are separated by a comma, which nests in the verb or auxiliary verb, which then gets only mentioned after the nested clause. The nested clause should explain the context, which also is explained in the subclause that has been nested in shortly before the verb, which de-nests (the sentence) again before the end of the sentence. The subclause thus relates to the verb or auxiliary verb.
The verb nests sentences through the use of a comma, which marks the nesting of the subclauses that were nested in.
Hope that helps or at least doesn't confuse more than before...