Professor Smashes PC Dipped in Liquid Nitrogen

[itadakimasu]

I'm glad he wasn't doing a demo as a Mac vs PC thing!

And surely it was a trash computer... if you froze and destroyed a students laptop it would mean instant lawsuit.

 

[Lavacon]

The dude looks like Egon from the ghostbusters movies.... after gaining 75 lbs or so

 

[Parrdacc]

Wow came back to read a few more responses to this and looks like anyone, regardless of reason, that felt the professor went to far got massive negative points. Even those who did not have a main opinion but just said things to the effect that liquid nitro was not necessary if he just threw it to the ground it would have accomplished the same thing got burned. Makes me wonder.

 

[g00ey]

He should have groaned and moaned, perhaps even screamed while doing this and his point would come through much better.

 

[Guest]

I feel this professor finally got wind of what has been happening at the chemistry department here for years... At the University of Missouri Rolla we have a teacher who destroy's a cell phone every year to demonstrate his point, but he launches the phone at a wall in a lecture hall with 250 people. I think he teach's 3 sections so that 3 phones a semester. They also do it for out chemistry lab safety course to a laptop and tell people not to bring laptops to the lecture. The laptop just busts in half and the insides bust into tiny pieces the LCD stays in mostly one chunk. But when the teacher launches a cell phone at a wall like its a baseball, lets say there is very little left. There is a video floating around our campus somewhere of the laptop he did it too. Also they let our freshman who take chem play with liquid nitrogen on day one like this. They just let who ever wanted to put street hockey balls in it and throw them. They shatter into millions of pieces, its good fun.

 

[soccerplayer88]

[citation][nom]babybeluga[/nom]I think you all are missing the point. I don't think the professor was raging about a student bringing a laptop to class. I bet he does that every semester to keep his students interested, not to scare them into submission. He gets the point across either way and with such a hands on approach, I bet his class is interesting enough to not have to distract yourself. I wish I had this guy as a professor...[/citation]

Yeah, my old metal shop teacher used to take a prepaid cellphone and ask a student in his class to act like it was his phone. It would ring and the teacher would then take it away, then proceed to use a circular saw on it. O:

 

[babybeluga]

[citation][nom]Parrdacc[/nom]Wow came back to read a few more responses to this and looks like anyone, regardless of reason, that felt the professor went to far got massive negative points. Even those who did not have a main opinion but just said things to the effect that liquid nitro was not necessary if he just threw it to the ground it would have accomplished the same thing got burned. Makes me wonder.[/citation]

Probably because nobody brought up the only real negative point. He's destroying perfectly good technology for no real reason. I'm sure that would've garnered some thumbs up, but everybody who said something negative about it seemed to be ignorant, so there you have it.

 

[mr_tuel]

[citation][nom]sliem[/nom]I wanted to see the broken laptop on the ground. Poor job camera man.Also laptop should be used in the classroom as long as it does not distract other students, what's wrong with him.[/citation]

It should still be up to the prof. At least at my school, half the students are on facebook during lectures.

 

[jsc]

Tell me again, this proves what?

 

[m-manla]

This seems like College or a University. If the kids want to waste their money by playing games on the laptop, that is their business. They are old enough you would think. It just makes it easier for people like me to succeed.

 

[nottheking]

People need to read the original site... Or actually take a college science class. Professors are known for stunts like that; the GOOD ones seek out ways to really grab their students' attention.

At American universities, students are under zero obligation to actually attend class; if they don't care about their grades, there's nothing stopping them from skipping out. This sort of behavior can be heartbreaking for those that really care about the subject, so professors that can get away with such things will pull off eye-grabbing stunts.

This is especially true for chemistry professors, who have access to all manner of normally incredibly-dangerous chemicals. LN2 is a popular staple, with it being shown off in SOME manner in virtually all college chemistry classes. This is really just an alternative to the now-passe trick of using it to make a batch of ice cream in seconds. Other tricks involve setting things on fire. (note that those ubiquitous black countertops like seen in that video are fireproof for that very reason)

[citation][nom]pei-chen[/nom]Lame, it will take a while for the internal temperature of the laptop to drop enough to affect structural integrity.[/citation]
I would think that the temperature differences itself would lend some extra stress. while the internals certainly wouldn't be made brittle with the time given, I'd think that the casing might've been affected, especially given that it appeared to be a cheap plastic case; it would've likely made the difference from it mostly cracking on impact, to likely shattering that side of the case. Not what would be fatal damage, but still would result in a spectacular spray of casing shards.

 

[Guest]

what smashed computer???all i viewed was a prof. putting a pc in liquid nitrogen, which is really cool an all, but there is no money shot! if you don't have video, it didn't happen...

 

[nickk]

Idiot. Why does it matter if students use laptops or not for taking notes.
Shouldn't be more important if they actually learn something? That's what exams are for I think.
That teacher has a serious problem dealing with students. And computers.

Too bad for that school.

 

[Guest]

Fired.

Lawsuit.

 

[mlopinto2k1]

That was definitely out of hand. No pun intended.

 

[pocketdrummer]

Who's on the thumb down rampage around here?

 

[methal]

This is seriously a college class? kidding me? fire that teacher. Send him to high school where the students aren't forking out thousands to sit in his class.
After I started bringing my laptop to class my grade point average went up a whole point.
what a tool.

 

[buwish]

Attention getter never the less.

 

[overclockingrocks]

Hell of a demonstration I can see the logic behind it however I'm not if I agree with the implied message that if someone brings their laptop to his class he will destroy it. I've only ever had one prof tell us not to bring laptops to class and all he ever did when someone would disobey this is tell them to either go put it in a locker and come back or he would take it and put it under the lecturn and then give it back to them at the end of class. Although I do agree that after seeing this demonstration I would be wondering what he'd do next too much to bother with needing a laptop in class.

 

[jwl3]

I want the last 2 minutes of my life back. What a waste of time - that's like filming a comet going into Jupiter right up to the point of impact and then panning to the sham wow guy selling towels.

 

[Guest]

well as a corporate trainer myself for the last 6 years i understand what and why he was willing to make this kind of point. As when you have targets or standards to achieve and when your pupils fail the obvious because they have been to busy with a flash game/IM/facebook and other shit and now complaints it to hard to pass because they cant dig their head up from their distraction. So in my eyes he was way to nice as i dont let them get away with this that easy. Dont like it? well that is ok, because you could try to go to the stage and teach yourself and see how fun and rewarding it is to see your class fail because they cant take things serious for some hours of the day. After a while you stop being nice, you just fire people/expel them because they are not worth the effort to keep. So until you have tried to teach a class you see most of this as unfair etc, but there is patience and there is pushing beyond it.