Why do we have two meter sticks taped together back to back?
What is the dark stain obscuring the markings between 30 and 70 cm on half of the meter sticks?
Where the hell are all the stopwatches?
Why are the demo magnets sticky?
Why do we still have six meters worth of a rusting, broken torsional wave demonstration?
Why are the springs sorted into drawers with color labels ("Springs-Red") when all the springs are the same color, and there's no particular correlation with the spring constant?
Why do we have five hundred yellowing sheets of newsprint?
Why are the metal projectiles stored in an unmarked drawer, rather than in the tray with all the other projectile launcher stuff?
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Your stock room is WAY cooler than our supply cabinet.
I glad to see there is some consistency for physics stock rooms across the country. One summer I spent quite a few hours trying to figure out what some stuff was. The biggest help was this ANCIENT sargent welch catalog (it looked like an old giant bible). It had very detailed sketches of all the demo equipment with great explanations.
I'll answer your questions if you'll answer mine at the end:
1. Because the hidden sides are in inches.
1a. So it works better as a pointer or weapon.
2. Someone let chemists borrow some of them?
3. In the drawer labeled "projectiles".
4. The magnets are sticky because the atomic glue responsible for magnetic attraction is leaking out.
5. Everyone is sure that someone is going to fix that torsional wave demonstrator someday.
6. Legacy labeling. You once owned the color coded springs that are sold by one supply company.
7. You can send those sheets of newsprint to us. Seriously. We can use them on our air tables.
8. Because someone put them there once, and everyone else puts things back where they came from.
OK, I know this last answer is HIGHLY unlikely, but that is what happens in our lab store room.
Question: How many square feet are there in your lab storage room, and what are the dimensions of your actual lab space for N (?) students in your 'intro' lab?
Why do we have two meter sticks taped together back to back?
Insufficient information. What scales are on the visible sides and how are they aligned?
Why are the demo magnets sticky?
They were once taped to something.
Why are the metal projectiles stored in an unmarked drawer, rather than in the tray with all the other projectile launcher stuff?
The drawer is older than the tray.
it's all part of the stock room gnomes diabolical plan to make you crazy. the plan has three steps.
Phase 1: Collect Underpants. Mess up stockroom.
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit! (and make Chad crazy)