You've seen this in the movies, on TV, and read in books. If you have some sort of talent, the Military Service bypasses that to assign you to what you can't do! (In an episode of the TV, "M.A.S.H.", Ed Begley, Jr., plays a guy who's a great cook, but is assigned as an infantry rifleman in Korea.)

You expect this. Actually, I was allowed to volunteer for the Weather Service, and did fairly well as a Weather Observer and Forecaster. But Columbia U. chose to play Contrarian. Columbia bureaucrats wouldn't allow me to change my V. A. classification as Physics Major. I've mentioned my fear and loathing of the Physics and Math courses. And fear and loathing became compounded in laboratory courses!

I tried to make a good start. I did as much homework as I could before going into Lab. (In "Library of Physics Kits", I describe my proposal for overcoming the disadvantage of science students -- as compared to, say, History Majors -- in preparing for class. Ignored by The National Science Foundation, a comparable help still does not exist!) I careful collected data; wrote careful reports. Got commendatory grades from my Lab Teacher. But when, at the end of the semester, I rushed his sealed envelop of grades to the Lecture Professor, I found that Course grades had already gone in. "I never bother with the Lab Grades in calculating the Course Grades." (It jest makes yuh think -- and curse!)

I suffered the second Lab semester under a Control Freak. He locked the doors promptly at 9 A.M. Even seconds late, and you had to do afternoon Make-Up Lab with another instructor. We had to sit at our lab desk, hands folded, while he spent about half of the 3 assigned hours lecturing about the experiment, which was described in the Manual. Then we had to rush to conduct the experiment and get the data -- because, 20 minutes before the end of the period, we had to clean up and sit hands folded until the bell rang. Also he said he wanted exactly two report pages. I didn't take that literally and went one sentence over on a third page. The instructor said mine was a "good report", but had violated his rule, so I received an "F" for this felony. My Lab Mate got a "C" because his report was missing one line of filling two pages. I thought I hated Lab, but I now knew it!

But I had to take another undergraduate semester. My Lab Mate was Katsume Hosakawa, a Japanese-American Engineering Major. Katz was such a pleasant fellow and so knowledgeable that I did enjoy that one Lab and was unprepared for the Trauma to follow.

At this time there were two atrocious required courses in the Graduate Physics Program: "Analytic Dynamics" and "Advanced Laboratory".

"AM" was given once a year, in the Spring: two hours a day, three days a week. The text is still considered among the most recondite of publications, "A Treatise on the Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies", E. T. Whittaker, 1904, 1944. The course also inncluded 200 pages of "Notes" and 150 pages of "Problems". THAT WAS JUST FOR STARTERS! You had to show up an hour before the class started. Why? Two assistants came in and spent an hour filling nine blackboards with information which expressed the Professor's interpretation of the course subject. Before the Professor entered, all of that was erased. Many students of the Course never saw that information, so didn't know they were responsible for it!

The amphitheater usually included around 80 students. About 40 would show up for the Final Examination. And 4 would expect to pass. 10%! So -- how to your cope with that?

Students in the know -- such as jh -- signed up for this Graduate Course in their Senior Undergraduate Year. You sit through the course; don't show up for the Final; take an "Incomplete". In your first Graduate year, you repeat the course in the Spring. At the end of the semester, you must take the Final, and you usually Fail. The next year, you repeat and perhaps take an "Incomplete". If so, repeat the next year and Pass or Fail.

I took an "Incomplete" at the end of my Senior Undergraduate Year, went to NYU and never came back. My friend, Dick Rosen, took it in Senior Year. along with me. It took him three Graduate Years to Pass this horrible course.

The irony of this is that David Hestenes -- who has pioneered multivector theory (Arithmetic of Clifford Numbers), in this country -- has written an excellent text on this subject, New Foundations for Classical Mechanics, 1986, using multivectors to unify the subject matter. If I'd had a text like this, I'd have understood at least some of it -- instead of merely memorizing esoterica. But courses using this text are rare in this country (and abroad?), ten years after its publication!

A Graduate Physics degree also required two semesters of "Advanced Laboratory", supervised by two professors. One was a wonderful teacher and delightful woman, Prof. Lucy Hayner. (In my description of the murder which diverted my studentship, I mention that the poor maniac committing the crime had drawn Hayner's name, along with those of two other profs. from the Columbia Manual.) I list Prof. Hayner among those of whom I say, "Let Us Praise the Sacred Names of the Teachers". I do so -- not for what I learned from this Lab course, but from what she did to try to make it tolerable. For the Course had a devilish trick built into it!

If you know anything about physical instruments, you know that they have to be reset to correct deviation from standard measures. Clocks that run slow or fast. Bathroom scales that overweigh or underweigh. (Some actually do!) Etc. In a good Student Lab, the instruments used by students should be check periodically and corrected. But, in this Lab Course, the instruments were checked; their errors noted down; but they might not be reset! Why? Well, teachers know that students sometimes FUDGE to get the result they think they're supposed to get and report this -- not what they actually find. SO YOU BETTER NOT GET GOOD DATA FROM INSTRUMENTS THAT CAN'T DELIVER SUCH "GOODNESS"!!!

This really scared hell out of every student taking the Course. Enough that you never got your reports in on time -- or EVER! Typically, you got an "Incomplete" for the First Semester and also for the Second Semester. And repeated the year's Course.

And, as in the case of "Analytical Dynamics", most students do as I did -- take this Graduate Course in the Senior Undergraduate Year, so as to have time in the Graduate years to repeat it.

I spent two semesters in it during my Senior year, got "Incompletes", went to NYU and never looked back. But Dick Rosen followed that Senior year in the course with two Graduate years before passing it.

During my Second Semester, the Trauma triumphed!

The COMPUTER was one of the big new things for my generation. I'd taken a course in programming, setup before computer languages were developed! (You plugged wires into a board like Lily Tomlin's Ernestine -- "One ringy-dingy! Two ringy-dingies!") And I'd taken another course in "Numerical Mathematics for Programmers". But I also wanted to know something about the HARDWARE. One of the experiments in "Advanced Laboratory" was "building a three-stage Geiger counter". You've seen one of these in umpteen movies and TV shows. Goes BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! when near radiation. The amplifier used vacuum tube circuits to take a tiny signal and magnify it for easier observation by "building up in the first stage". and "in the second stage", and "in the third stage". At that time, this circuit was also the basis of some COMPUTER COUNTERS. Hence, my curiosity.

It took me 2 hours to get the first stage working. Fumbling. Dropped components. Mislaid components. Incorrect reading of the diagram. Loose connections. Gremlins! Finally, the first stage worked the way the manual "said".

Now, for the second stage of the amplifier. This proceeds in two sequences. You build the second rig according to diagram. Then you disconnect some wires on the first stage to connect it to the second stage of the amplifier. AY! THERE'S THE RUG -- that "gets pulled from under you"! Not only the signal does not advance into the second-stage rig, but it fails to repeat its previous first stage performance! All the problems of the "first stage experience" occur -- and more! Finally, after two more hours -- four hours into this Funny Fair -- I had the two stages working.

Now, for the third stage of the amplifier, which required disconnecting some second stage wires. Locusts! Boils! Plagues! Screaming Meemees! After two more hours -- added to the previous four -- I had a signal advancing through two stages and disappearing at the "border of the third stage rig".

Failing to find the glitch, I called one of the Lab Assistants. He couldn't find any thing wrong. He called the other Lab Assistant. He couldn't find anything wrong , either.

It was now at the seventh hour. Then the other supervising Prof showed up and demanded to know "what's going on?"

This guy was a well-known Con Man. He'd make coffee, sharpen pencils, whatever, just to get his name on research paper after research paper. A real politician with the higher powers and the Press. Got cited as a consultant by many science writers. But the scourge of students and Lab Assistants. Also, he considered himself an expert on Geiger counter circuits.

When I stuttered out my failures, he sneered about "the lousy students these days". When the Lab Assistants backed me up, he sneered about "the lousy Lab Assistants these days". And HIS EXPERTNESS issued an OPINION: "That amplifier is incorrectly wired and will never work properly." Then he turned to stalk off like a Teachsniff in Lab smock.

I was so tired and frustrated that I slumped back onto the lab desk and onto the amplifier. INSTANTLY THE AMPLIFIER BEGAN TO WORK! The two Assistants took readings for me and pronounced it as "functioning properly". That so infuriated HIS EXPERTNESS that he vacated the Lab.

"Ok, Hays. It works. Get your data. Now, what's your problem?"

"Look. I couldn't make it work. You two guys couldn't make it work. Prof. !%#@* said it couldn't work and had to be partially built over. And THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE IT WORK IS TO SIT ON IT! Maybe you guys have the nervous system for this -- but I DON'T. I'm taking data and getting out of here!"

I thought I never wanted to see a Lab again. But the last two experiments were not so trying. I was still too scared to turn in my reports. But I actually contempated repeating the Course the next year! Until the MURDER. Then, all the frustrations of those 7 hours fused with the frustration attending that murder event -- making me decide to leave Physics FOREVER!

(Elsewhere I've described my "Trig-unpreparedness" and that this was the first course I had to teach. Guess what was the other first course I taught at that time? Uhuh! Physics Laboratory! NAH-NAH-NAH-NAH! NAH-NAH-NAH-NAH!)