Bartholomew “Barty” Butterfield, a pre-med student with aspirations of brain surgery, was convinced his superior intellect extended to all fields. He’d overheard a physics student, a lanky fellow named Quentin, lamenting the complexities of a particularly tricky pendulum experiment. “Child’s play,” Barty declared, puffing out his chest. “I’ll solve it in a jiffy.” Quentin, ever the pragmatist, merely raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Barty, armed with his meticulously organized notes (and a healthy dose of overconfidence), set to work. He calculated angles, graphed trajectories, and muttered about Newtonian physics with the air of someone performing open-heart surgery on a particularly stubborn grapefruit. Hours later, sweat beading on his brow, Barty presented his findings. He’d devised a complex system involving pulleys, weights, and a rubber chicken – because, as he explained, “the unpredictable nature of the chicken adds an element of chaotic unpredictability that beautifully mirrors the intricacies of the pendulum’s motion.”
Quentin stared at the contraption, his skepticism now bordering on open-mouthed horror. “Barty,” he finally said, his voice tinged with pity. “The pendulum is supposed to *swing*.” He pointed to a perfectly ordinary pendulum, swinging gently in its stand, seemingly mocking Barty’s Rube Goldberg contraption. “This is the control group. It’s already working perfectly. You were supposed to measure *its* swing period.”
Barty blinked, his carefully constructed world of chaotic rubber chicken physics collapsing around him. He looked at his meticulously documented calculations, the rubber chicken swinging limply from a string. He mumbled something about needing “to recalibrate for unforeseen variables,” and promptly retreated, leaving Quentin to shake his head and mutter, “Pre-med… right.”
