# A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 17, 2012, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267 "2012-12-17T03:46:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/1 "2012-12-17T03:46:49Z")
I’m sure it’s an apocryphal story, but still amusing - [A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him](http://theburiedlife.tumblr.com/post/33811181290/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and) ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/2 "2012-12-17T03:49:13Z")
I think the message would have been more potent if he used Everclear instead of beer. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/3 "2012-12-17T03:58:24Z")
I’ll bet the brand of beer he used was “Glurge.” ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/4 "2012-12-17T04:02:38Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > I’ll bet the brand of beer he used was “Glurge.” Awww. You only have to wait an hour till you can have a full on set of the Mondays on the east coast. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/5 "2012-12-18T02:44:02Z")
Very amusing. Specifically, the part where the professor gets a class of philosophy students to “agree” that a jar of golf balls is “full.” Professor: Is this jar full? Realist: No, there’s gaps. Skeptic: We can’t tell. Nihilist: There isn’t even a jar. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/6 "2012-12-18T03:03:45Z")
Optimist: The glass if hall-full. Pessimist: The glass if hall-empty. Engineer: The glass is twice as big as it needs to be. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/7 "2012-12-18T03:24:04Z")
I kind of doubt whoever wrote that ever took a philosophy class. It’s not “philosophy” in the sense of “your approach to life”. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/8 "2012-12-18T03:28:06Z")
Heard that one sometime at least 15 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![iftheresaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecae2f/32.png) [@iftheresaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iftheresaway)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/9 "2012-12-18T04:39:35Z")
Yeah, when I heard it it was “big rocks” instead of golf balls, with the moral being “get your big rocks in first”. (Same idea that big rocks = important stuff). And that version used water, rather than beer. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/10 "2012-12-18T05:07:44Z")
Computer Scientist: This is isomorphic to the knapsack problem. Therefore we can conclude that finding an optimal ordering of life priorities is NP-hard. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/11 "2012-12-18T05:11:14Z")
Ok, so life is a mayonaisse jar full of golf balls, pebbles, sand, and beer. Sounds about right. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/12 "2012-12-18T05:34:39Z")
Physicist: Well, all matter is mostly just empty space, so technically you should start with some exotic matter like neutronium… Chemist: You could fit way more in there if you use hydrofluoric acid to dissolve all those rocks… ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/13 "2012-12-18T06:50:43Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > Physicist: Well, all matter is mostly just empty space, so technically you should start with some exotic matter like neutronium… > Chemist: You could fit way more in there if you use hydrofluoric acid to dissolve all those rocks… Bad idea. What happens to the glass jar when HF hits it? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/14 "2012-12-18T07:14:58Z")
You need to define “full.” Otherwise, it’s just bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/15 "2012-12-18T07:28:53Z")
It was a rather dumb or at least naive class to agree that the jar was full after the pebbles. Remember as George Bush put it: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — [pause] — shame on you. Fool me — [pause] — You can’t get fooled again.” ---
**Author:** ![Rala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@Rala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rala)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/16 "2012-12-18T11:18:17Z")
Someone did that in my church once. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/17 "2012-12-18T12:02:08Z")
I don’t get it. So exactly which brand of mayonnaise was it? ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/18 "2012-12-18T12:28:02Z")
Pouring beer into sand?! Why would you waste perfectly good sand like that? ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/19 "2012-12-18T12:37:56Z")
Doper: You need to define “full.” Otherwise, it’s just bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267/20 "2012-12-18T12:56:18Z")
The lesson I took from this is that you can never devote more than [100π/3√2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-packing_of_equal_spheres) percent of your life to important things. 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-professor-stood-before-his-philosophy-class-and-had-some-items-in-front-of-him/644267.md?page=2)