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Hi, I'm the OP. I realized I was reading my own FML and thus created this account. To elaborate the story, these estimations are called Fermi problems and they're designed to teach dimensional analysis and approximation. They're typical in physics and engineering education and mine is a mix of both. The gerbil-sun is actually an approximation presented by Dr. Larry Weinstein - a physics professor and co-author of 'Guesstimation: Solving the World's Problem's on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin'. I believe the title should speak for itself... *sigh*... and that is exactly how it felt to be on the lecture. It is not that I think that learning to approximate is something to be scoffed at, per se. Indeed, it is skill that all experimental scientists and other people alike do need and find useful - often in basic, everyday life. However this was the third lecture in the series and they all have gone more or less within the realm of vagueness, "hip" examples and little to grasp for the inevitable physics homework that doesn't solve itself. On a related note, my lecture-mates also eagerly discussed the approximate number of piano tuners in Finland (in the original problem the place is Chicago) and at which height Felix Baumgartner might have broken the sound barrier during his sky-dive from the altitude of 39 kilometers (estimate). As this endless drone went on and on, I sat there, bored out of my mind, desperately wondering if and when the tune of the lecture(s) would change and how the heck would I utilize this in the homework, most of which requires some actual and exact calculation, not just some half-baked estimates. Thus the FML. P.S. There's actually a short article in thepointnews.com about Weinstein and his gerbil-sun, and I must say it was way more interesting (not to mention less time-consuming) a read than listening my class drone on and on about it and the other Fermi problems for 90 minutes straight.

:D My FML actually got posted. Is it bad that I feel proud?

OP here, many thanks to those that saw the humor in this! For those that think "YDI", you should know that this happened a VERY long time ago and my kids have all grown up to be successful adults with rich fulfilling lives...

This is my FML and I never realized it got published until I came across it under the random section. I thought I'd fill in the details because I think about this kid a lot. The student in question was on probation from two previous drug charges. He was a mess-- always drunk or high and everything he did was a cry for help (tagging, fighting, truancy). I'd had a meeting with his mother once already about him failing my class due to poor attendance. She accused me of lying (even though he told her he always ditched my class). He even admitted to me that he picked my class to smoke in because he wanted to get caught and he knew I would turn him in. It actually wasn't this incident that got him expelled-- a week or so later he punched his probation officer and after that I have no idea what happened to him. I don't totally blame him-- he was only 15, after all. And it was hard to see beyond the drugs and bad decisions, but he had brains and was a good artist-- he had potential. If he had had a better mother maybe he might have had a chance. Her denial damaged him considerably. I don't mind the troubled and damaged kids, but it's the parents who made them that way I have no patience for and that make my job difficult. This actually happened three years ago, so I can only hope he's pulled himself together. I know many people that have had similar rough starts to life and have made it out ok.