Advanced geekery

It's not very often that what I'm learning from different classes can fit together this well, and the fact that they do fit so well is really neat. For instance, we covered charged particles in physics while plant physio went through lectures on the transport of charged particles through membrane using transport proteins (with calculations using Nerst equation, no less) and cell bio was going over voltage-gated ion channels and transmembrane proteins.

However, all the teachers are, more or less, realizing that the final week of class is approaching and that they, more or less, are running a bit low on time now. Today we covered quantum physics in 42 minutes, which gave the term "crash course" an entirely different meaning (especially what with the final on next Tuesday). It went something like this: Light! Particles! Waves! Particle-Wave Model! Quantized things! Planck's constant! Don't forget these on Thursday's quiz! End lecture.

On the other hand, I have to give the professors points for creativity, as far as their practice problems are concerned.

Physics people are already familiar with. Here's what we get this week:

1) Timmy and Tina created the following atom. In the following questions you will describe the
characteristics of this imaginary atom.
a) This atom emits two photons and one photon has twice the energy of the other. Both
photons are emitted from transitions from an excited state to the ground state. Draw an energy level diagram for this imaginary atom. Label your energy levels E1, E2, E3

(And yes our questions are usually multiple parts. As for the hypothetical situation...well...it IS science and it IS physics.)

Then my plant physio professor surprised me with his problem:

At the end of a hard day of science, a geologist searching for natural gas deposits and a plant physiologist studying plant response to CO2 find themselves on adjacent bar stools. Watching the bubbles rise in his nth beer, the geologist proclaims, "Ah, carbon dioxide! The more we put in the atmosphere, the better plants will grow!" Trying to impress his companion further, he explains how plants will benefit from more CO2. Write an appropriate monologue.

There is indeed, dear Hamlet, a method to his madness. I'm impressed.

My regrade came through and the teacher gave me back 2.9 points, making me feel very pleased throughout the entire three hours of physics this afternoon. I don't mean to be picking at every point, though I've heard of the phrase "a point is a point is a point" a few times already. But you have to admit, when the entire thing is graded on a scale of 10 points, 2.9 points does matter a rather lot.

On the other side of the academics? I have two finals for plant physio, one of them is take home and will be given to us this Thursday (last day of class this week). It will probably involve something along the lines of "explain the structural difference between the chloroplasts of C3 and C4 plants" and will require copious amount of writing.
At least I know what I'm doing this weekend.