Although lack of attribution is correctly frowned upon in academic circles and your student deserves whatever he gets I recall a story from my student days.

The professor of engineering set his students a problem. "Given that to cook a side of beef medium rare the core temperature of the roast must reach 45 C how long will it take to cook 2Kg of meat to medium rare in a 200 C oven with the meat starting at room temperature (22 C)?

Student 1 was the practical type so he just rang his mom, posed the question and got the answer 1 1/2 hours dear. Have you met a girl?

Student 2 was of the more experimental bent and also rich so he simply cooked up a series of pieces of meat for 1/2 1 1/2 and 2 hours and sampled them to arrive at the answer of 1 1/2 hours.

Student 3 was a little more on the deeply experimental side. He purchased a meat thermometer, performed the experiment, and came up with the answer.

Student 4 was the theoretician. He looked a the specific heat capacity of meat, heat transfer rates through solids and came up with an answer (he was wrong of course because his model was insufficiently accurate and failed to account for the insulating effect of the fat) so had to eat a very rare roast so added a SWAG* to get his answer.

Question: Who will make the better engineer?

* SWAG (n) Scientific Wild Arsed Guess

cheers

tachyon

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