Skip to main content

Blame it on Physics

If you need an online calculator, one for just about anything, check out this website

----------------------------

 Blame it on the Physics
The first multiple choice tests were developed in about 1915 by Frederick Kelly, an education specialist.  This test was a timed reading test, produced because Kelly viewed human judgement of reading skills fundamentally flawed.  The idea was to make testing more objective.  This worked and was widely adapted. Just 22 years later physics teacher Reynold Johnson devised a method of identifying pencil marks against a key to automatically grade them, saving countless hours of hand grading. Johnson was hired by IBM to develop the device.  Multiple choice test became the premier testing vehicle – to this day. This first device recognized the marks electronically. However, in 1955, the first patent to recognize marks optically was issued to Everett F. Lindquist, an education professor.  The rest is history, and modern history at that.

Remarkable is the fact that multiple choice tests are but a century old. This implies some of our greatest scholars not only taught a large number of courses while pursuing their research, but graded every exam question by hand – no choices given.  If may also partially explain why only end-of-course exams were given.

----------------------

Kraft Foods is now marketing a new salad dressing.  Called Russian Collusion, it was tested on 300,000,00 persons.  Survey information indicates it tastes great to 30%, tastes terrible to 30%, and is tasteless to the remainder.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Human Simulation is Possible - by Humans

  Human Simulation: Agent-Based Modeling and the Computational Case for Our Reality   1.       Introduction In the essay, we introduce the notion that humanity could be a deliberate simulation based on an extremely simple single-celled organism, hardly anything more complex than that. This will allow an (apparently) new interpretation of the notion that humanity is simulated, but that there is no master engineer at a massive number of dials and switches, responsible for every twist and turn of our universe and lives. We begin with the notion that the universe exists and operates under its own laws. So, given the Earth [2] , when and where life first began, it was infused with a living agent, self-actualized, reproductive, and with other basic rules for its operations, interactions, and much of what single-celled organisms do today. The idea from this occurred some years back when writing code in ActionScript (formerly Flash), I was able to create...

No Sympathy From Me

Suicide Coming Home Many years ago, a friend hung himself in his basement.  I was a pall-bearer at his funeral. I was shocked I was so asked.  I did this.  I did not understand why a good-looking fellow, intelligent, kindly, and true could do such a thing. He did. I do not.  His family suffered greatly.  Yet he left no issue.   Thankfully. To my mind Country singer Mindy McCready, 37, showed us the very height of personal selfishness by committing suicide.  By giving birth to two offspring, she accepted the responsibility to raise her newborn and six-year old son.  She abrogated it spectacularly.  (As did the father a month ago.)  Though she may have suffered depression for any number of reasons, she has little sympathy from me for leaving behind a legacy that is now lost, is now parent-less, and may drift into problems of their own in the future.    There is shame and heartbreak in all this, but blame should be...

Problem Solving - Murder

Abstract  Most certainly, a homicide investigation is a problem-solving event and requires tools and intelligence similar to most scientific research. A homicide investigation is the most rigorous application of the state’s police power. This paper examines the structural framework of these investigations, focusing on the psychological profile of the detective, the procedural utility of the "Murder Manual" and "Murder Book," and the taxonomy of investigative problems. This essay is about solving a murder, though by synthesizing these theories with the 2026 Nancy Guthrie abduction/presumptive homicide case in Arizona, it illustrates the shift from physical evidence to "digital and medical absence" as an essential tool for prosecution in "no-body" cases. Here is a table of contents for this essay. 1.      The Homicide Detective 2.      The Murder Book and Murder Manual 3.      The Complexity of Homicide 4.  ...