I vividly remember my first exposure to science when as a callow pre-pubescent youth, I was shipped off to the city to go to school. This was my first experience of a school with separate class rooms. Our science teacher was crowned with the nickname "Bull Frog" for reasons which are no doubt lost in obscurity and our first lesson was in a lecture theatre with a high vaulted ceiling. Suspended from the ceiling on a rope was a large steel ball about half the size of a basketball. Bull Frog strode imperiously into the room and with-out saying a word took the ball and himself to one side of the room where the ball at its fall stretch was exactly at his head height. In utter silence, he let go of the ball which swung right over the other side of the room and back and which miraculously reached its apogee a fraction of an inch from his head. We of course had visions of his head being smashed like a watermelon by this massive steel ball. Bull Frog tamed to the class and said "gentlemen, welcome to science".
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