LECTURE, DISCUSSION, AND LABORATORY
 
 
     C T had grown accustomed to the institutions of large-
scale academia, the most prominent of which is the mass
lecture hall.  There is no greater standing in going to a Big
11 school like the University than being treated as an
insignificant.  He always sat in front, for there, the people
looked at him from behind, never getting a good look at his
less-than-impressive face, and he gained the sense of
prominence that an arbitrary choice of seating did not give.
Physics 230 was the extension of the driving pursuit of fact
he did in Physics 130, the mechanical prerequisite.  It was
the electrical half of a "general" physics sequence necessary
for a large number of technical and scientific types, but
since he was in physics, he felt guilty when it seemed to
drag at times.
 
     The world of opportunity starts when one runs through
the dissociation of lecture, discussion, and laboratory for
the same course.  It is a sense of mastery of the campus,
where spanning lines run about the majestic buildings,
between those scattered rooms and halls where the parts of
the whole meet.  C T loved it.  High school might have been
"personal" for him, but when he met the campus as he had in
Physics 130, a new personality was presented to him, one with
a mighty enchantment.  It was a shame, then, that the
material of the class didn't pull him sharply up.  It was a
general process of work in general physics, not the great
revelations that one might have in a real meeting of minds.
His mind met the pages of the book and the particular
illustrations, not the authors, not Galileo, Newton, or
Maxwell.
 
     Yes, C T traveled the campus a lot for Physics 230, as
much a scene of vicissitudes as the many pages in the book,
but certainly more concrete.  Concrete, stone, and hand-worn
hardwood.  The lecture was held in the newly completed
Physical Sciences Building.  A conservative structure to
match the stance of the older portions of the faculty who
ordered it, it contained his favorite library and three large
lecture halls.  Room 101 was the place of his 9:00 lecture
every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.  He arrived on time
every day after eating an improvised breakfast in his room,
taking the steps to the front two at a time.  He settled
difficultly into the seat, with its adjacent swinging mini-
desk.  He took no notes; his mind absorbed the impact of the
words; the close scrutiny of the vertically mobile
chalkboards.  It was the necessary ingraining of concepts he
knew he needed for his more exciting future.  He ended up
ingrained in academic procedures.
 
     He knew a more exciting future was coming.  He didn't
call himself any kind of a prophet for his future, but things
had an uncanny way of coming true.  This was only to the
point of avoiding scaring him, however, so C T was able to
live with his gift.  In Schrodinger Hall he attended
discussion on a dark Monday.  The beginning of a week didn't
bother him.  That difficulty seemed to afflict the people in
that room next door a lot more.  He thought of them as he
ascended the steps to the second floor.  Robinson and
Franklin were engineers.  That is an overstatement, C T
thought, because they never would be.  The curious
nomenclature that makes any dabbler in organized and
systematic technology an "engineer" was a mystery to him when
he observed their scrambling on the typical Sunday night.  He
watched "3600 Seconds" on his 300-millimeter portable while
they worked with their calculators.  C T lived with his.  An
agreement had been worked out, and most work had been done
the term before, on his current assignments.
 
     Professor Urn only associated with the lecturer, Dr.
Stammer, by belonging to the same department.  They didn't
like what each other did to their students.  Prof. Urn would
always repeat, in his own humanistic jargon, the theory Dr.
Stammer presented majestically on the board from typewritten
notes.  Thus, each student could accept a linear combination
of opinion to suit what he thinks will charm the departmental
examination writing committee, which is most likely
represents not a linear combination but a derivation of its
own mystery.  C T started into his own interpretations from
the start, but they did not serve to settle the ambiguities.
He assumed a seat in one of the larger front desks in room
205 and Prof. Urn came in, right on time.  That was the way.
Where as Prof.  Stammer kept 300 people waiting an extra 5
minutes with non-essential business matters relating to
finals and normal grade distributions, the exams being
designed for normal distribution, of course, Prof. Urn never
believed in letting small matters run rampant.
 
     After the discussion, at 14:00, C T walked to his
laboratory section in the Millikan Laboratory buiding.  The
current experiment was obligatory in the building bearing the
name of that great experimenter.  It was, of course, the
famous Millikan Oil Drop Experiment, recreated by the means
of a scientific supply company.  C T found the room.  He
loved having many, many laboratory rooms, instead of the
single drab room at Southville High, which had to span
mechanics to electronics.  How could one room prove the
massive number of dissimilar physical phenomena?  High school
laboratories only serve to unify physics in the mind of the
high school physics student.  Unfortunately, no one ever
attempts to re-unite the threads of theory.  No one has found
a way, although the new esoterica of hyper-physics was
trying, with its 8-too-many dimensions.
 
     What would the charge on an electron turn out to be
today?  C T pondered these experiments because of the value
judgments they make on the scientific experimenter.  Might
the charge somehow change in such a way that there would be
no notable changes in the rest of the behavior of the world?
Could C T be doing original research every time he comes into
Millikan Labs?  He went to work, finding that the work put
the questions out of his mind temporarily, and then the
results that proved the questions invalid magically removed
the problem once and for all.  C T knew he was to be a
scientist.  What other way to quell one's questions but to
look for the answer?  He waited for work to put that question
aside when he headed back to Lodge Hall.