Stupidest thing you've heard in school?

[wslee00]

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This was more the most stupid thing I've seen, but it still was pretty outstanding.

German school. Geography class. 11th grade (we were around 17-18 years old). Huge map of the world on the wall.

Hot chick in class gets called to the front.
Teacher: "Okay, let's start out with something easy as a warm-up. Show us where Africa is."

Chick gets that blank look.
"Africa?"
"Yes, Africa."

Her finger locates Europe, okay she knows this continent. At that moment the big, bold, red letters A-F-R-I-C-A are located right in front of her face. She looks at the African continent for a second, then her hand starts moving towards North America. She looks at it intently, mutters "No, can't be, that's America."
Then her hand starts crawling across Africa towards Australia. She hesitates, talks to herself: "No, that ain't it either." Next, her finger is hovering over India where she looks at the teacher. The teacher doesn't look too impressed, so she decides to move across Africa again, and stops at South America. "It must be this, then."

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she wasn't smart enough to pretend to trip and rip the map off the wall

[SuperUberBob]

No joke, this was what I overheard at Penn State.

Two girls talking:

#1: Hey, I just came back from Austrailia. It was a great trip.
#2: Austrailia? Do they have roads there?
#1: (looking stunned)...yeah

#2's tone was dead serious. And #1's very delayed response almost had me laughing.

[sebbb]

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Intro to stats, which I had to take as a requirement. The teacher is explaining the concept of EV, something I obviously knew well. She used keno as example saying that for every dollar you wager, on average you will get back $.75, therefore the EV of a $1 wager is $.75. I realize this is completely wrong, but I don't want to be a dick about it.

"Um, from everything I've read, the EV of a $1 bet would be -$.25 because you expect to lose a quarter from the bet. The EV would $.75 if you expect to win $.75 every time you bet a dollar."

"There are a lot of ways to state the same thing in statistics, blah, blah blah"

At this point I'm thinking she might not actually be wrong and Sklansky et al might just be using some weird non-standard system.

"If I use my system on a test, will you consider it wrong?"

"No, you can use it if you want."

After class I looked this up in the book and discovered that, guess what, there's only one correct explanation of EV.

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your teacher is not wrong, you and your professor are just looking at the EV of different variables

[Artsemis]

"You'll use this someday."

[Dazarath]

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your teacher is not wrong, you and your professor are just looking at the EV of different variables

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You're going to have a hard time convincing me that this is true.

Let's say I play a game where I pay $1, and I always win $0.75. Now let's say I play a game where I pay $0, and I always lose $0.25. It makes no sense to set the relative "0" point of the second game at -$1. I think no one would disagree that the EV of the second game is -$0.25. But when you mess with the numbers a bit, you'd say it's +$0.75?

Or what about a game where I pay $1 and win $0.75 vs a game where I pay $1000 and win $0.75. They have the same EV? Not unless you set the 0 EV point to be an arbitrary value. I guess you can argue that the EV of what you gain after you pay the initial fee is +$0.75, but I doubt that's what any teacher is referring to if they say something like, "The EV of playing this game is $x."

[mason55]

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What the hell, like 90% of these are really not that stupid (or funny).

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If it's not funny to you, you are probably too dim too apreciate the hilarity of some of these comments.

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either that or i learned long ago not to be a pretentious prick.

i was expecting stories like the time my sister put some forks and kives in the microwave; not because she didn't know metal couldn't go in the microwave but she didn't know that the shiny silver forks and knives were metal (she was 16). i wasn't expecting things like people believing urban legends, not knowing stuff they might have never even been taught, or asking legitimate questions.

[traz]

There's approximately an even number of stupid stories and stupid people in this thread

[Pokerbrat]

#1

In a physics class in the junior year of high school:

Teacher: What do you want to major in during college?
Future valedictorian: I haven't decided yet, maybe something to do with math or science.
Teacher: Oh, you should be a chemical engineer then.
Future valedictorian: Isn't that someone that drives trains??

#2

In an AP environmental science class senior year:

Teacher: Remember that it is Daylight Savings Time this weekend.
Student (holds up her hand tentatively): How does the government control the sun to make it lighter outside for an extra hour?
The class explodes in laughter.

[RicoTubbs]

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[ QUOTE ]
your teacher is not wrong, you and your professor are just looking at the EV of different variables

[/ QUOTE ]



You're going to have a hard time convincing me that this is true.

Let's say I play a game where I pay $1, and I always win $0.75. Now let's say I play a game where I pay $0, and I always lose $0.25. It makes no sense to set the relative "0" point of the second game at -$1. I think no one would disagree that the EV of the second game is -$0.25. But when you mess with the numbers a bit, you'd say it's +$0.75?

Or what about a game where I pay $1 and win $0.75 vs a game where I pay $1000 and win $0.75. They have the same EV? Not unless you set the 0 EV point to be an arbitrary value. I guess you can argue that the EV of what you gain after you pay the initial fee is +$0.75, but I doubt that's what any teacher is referring to if they say something like, "The EV of playing this game is $x."

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It's not hard to imagine that the teacher could have been asking one of the following two questions:
Question 1: What is the EV of owning the keno ticket?

Question 2: What is the EV of buying the keno ticket?

They don't have the same answer.

[traz]

Really not surprised that this is derailing into an EV arguement