Group project only becomes compelling after forming a small black hole
A group physics project became a lot more interesting this past Friday when a lack of initiative was so great that it caused a rift in spacetime.
“Late in the quarter, for whatever reason, students begin to lose their unquenchable thirst for knowledge regarding balls rolling down inclined planes,” explained Barney Dalton, a physics professor at UC Davis. “So naturally I wanted to inject some excitement into the class. Since the dean informed me I couldn’t legally play Russian roulette with students, I reasoned that group projects were the perfect facsimile. It always backfires spectacularly, but this time it backfired spectacularly spectacularly.”
The project in question was to be a presentation on the mechanics of a bullet shot from a speeding train underwater on Europa, the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter. What began as a silent standoff over Groupme escalated in tension as the deadline approached, eventually morphing into a full-blown game of mute chicken. The only break in tension occurred when a group member by the name of Karen accidentally sent a thumbs-up emoji. Other group members interpreted the thumbs-up to be sarcastic, which only strengthened their resolve to do and say nothing.
Professor Dalton hypothesized that the breach in the fabric of time was caused by “the amount of energy applied to the application of zero energy.”
The discovery of this anomaly was not the only incident in this event, as scientists also claim that the monumental workload inevitably done by a single group member at the last minute may slightly shift earth’s orbit around the sun.
Although the resulting rip in the fabric of spacetime was groundbreaking, it’s unlikely to lead to any scientific progress, as ultimately no one was willing to write a report.
Written by: Parker Nevin — phnevin@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
