Warmth Disperses and Time Passes as an AP Physics credit
Surprisingly, as a high school student I actually didn’t mind my physics class. Now it was only regular physics and not AP physics, which is obviously a very large difference, but it was never too overwhelming for me as a student. Even in college in physics one and physics two, I always found myself able to comprehend the concepts for the most part. However, AP physics is obviously a very difficult class for high school students. As previously mentioned, I did not take it but I had many friends that did. No doubt it’s a tough class. And that AP Physics exam to receive credit would be brutal. Imagining Hans Christian Von Baeyer in this class would be quite interesting to see. Given the vast amounts of knowledge we obviously know he had on physics and the laws of thermodynamics, you would think he’d have an easy time with the AP physics exam as a seventeen year old high school student. But assuming Hans Christian Von Baeyer decided to mess around and write his own collection of physics and thermodynamics theory to submit to the AP Physics administrators, I believe he would easily receive the credits given the opportunity. As the thought experiment question states, four of the scoring committee members decided not to give Hans Christian Von Baeyer and his collection of physics theories the time of day. Now I completely understand why they would do such a thing. I mean who does this guy think he is that he can just decide to write his own collection of works instead of taking the AP exam just like every other student. Out of principle, these four scoring committee members decided to throw his submission by the wayside. Thankfully for Von Baeyer, the fifth and final scoring committee member felt generous or curious I suppose and decided to give his collection of works a chance. Obviously after reading, the fifth member would have been absolutely blown away by the book. I am sure his thought would be something along the lines of “how could a simple seventeen year old write something as vivid and intense as this?” I am also sure that he would have a difficult time trying to convince the rest of the committee members to hear him out and read the book as well. For that committee member though, he would be smart to mention the vast detail and research that this seventeen year old showed in his book. He should mention the many different sources and phenomenal professors or philosophers that he drew his work from. Von Baeyer opens each chapter with a quote relating to that chapter and the world of physics and the laws of thermodynamics. These quotes and information comes from the likes of Albert Einstein, Rene Descartes, among others. He does not just make up a bunch of nonsense, he actually references and interprets these experts works. This is an actual collection of great works from great people in their field. These other four committee members would be in shock of what they would read. I believe they would all probably pass him if they were to actually read his work. It is completely understandable as to why they would not allow that though.
Picture by: P. Wormer
