Science is like Sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

Practicals are the bane of my existence. Back in my old school, the science teachers would gather around me whenever I tried to light a Bunsen Burner. I think they derived a lot of pleasure from seeing me flinch from the flame whenever I managed to light the burner, or they would just laugh as I miserably lit match after match and failed to light the burner. This level of total inadequacy in experimental skills dogs me to this very day, and I think it is a wonder that no video of me lighting the bunsen burner has found its way on the internet yet. I guess if I were overweight, that might be a different story, but I thank the Good Lord that I'm not.

So when I found out some weeks ago that I would have to undergo a practical test as part of a selection process for a Physics Competition, I was absolutely petrified! In school, except for its safety precautions, I don't normally take practicals seriously. I'm a total lazybum when it comes to experimenting. I guess it has to do with the way I have been educated: "What the textbooks say must always be right, and all that matters is that you have faith in it." So who am I, a lowly student, to go up against centuries of accepted theory? The chances of disproving a theory and garnering world-wide fame is just too slim to merit the risk of injuring oneself, so I just put my feet up when it comes to experimenting. Of course, I KNOW this can't be science, and that it's almost like religion, and we may be regressing because of this, but still nobody cares...so why should I be any different? After all, my efforts at trying to be a good scientist (like trusting to gut feelings, and disregarding instructions) have been met with ridicule and numerous raised eyebrows in the past, so if this is how they want to teach science in school, then so be it!

I was hoping quietly, of course, that this particular practical test might be different from the usual practicals that we get in school that tell you explicitly what to do. I've never been able to follow explicit instructions. I think this is because I'm so dulled by not having to think for myself that part of my brain switches off and I lose interest in the whole thing and proceed to do the experiment in a way that amuses me. Just this Monday, I unintentionally discovered a way to turn a non-chaotic pendulum into a chaotic one. That was one hour of Physics Practical wasted just like that, while everyone else managed to complete their practicals without any major hassles. My lack of achievement in practicals has discouraged me greatly, and I lacked confidence when I walked into the UBD Physics Lab on Wednesday.

As it turned out, the practical test was one of the oddest I've ever seen. It is also, by far, the most interesting practical I've ever performed and even if I did not do too well in it, I still enjoyed it tremendously. First of all, it did not involve oscillations, something that I've become weary off after having done dozens of those mind-dulling oscillation experiments in school. Honestly, after experimenting with so many pendulums, you kind of lose your wonder for how Galileo discovered the independence of a pendulum's swing from its amplitude. School practicals just suck all the fun and amazement that should derive from replicating ground-breaking scientific experiments. In all my years of lab experience, I've never heard a student exclaim "WOW!".

Wednesday was a different story, though. I walked into the 1st year Physics lab expecting to find awesome electrical apparatuses for us to use in the practical test (LEDs, transistors, WAHEE!), but was greeted by the disappointing sight of an almost empty lab save for a carton of soda water. They later rolled out some beakers, rulers and a box of plasticine for each student. We were each also given the question paper which consisted of one rather short problem. Answer scripts were to be handed in within two hours of the commencement of the paper, and a few cocky students among us remarked on how easy this was going to be.

A careful reading of the question revealed that this was not going to be so: there were absolutely no explicit instructions! For the next few minutes, most of us sat there scratching our heads, immobilised by our complete lack of experience in planning non-trivial experiments of OUR OWN design. The experimental problem was about finding the formula for the critical thickness of a bubble layer needed to buoy up a piece of plasticine. This was, of course, hydrostatics - something that I expected most students in the room to know since most of them had graduated A-Level Physics with an A already, but there they sat, having completely forgotten how Archimedes ran naked through the streets shouting "Eureka! Eureka!".

Despite having never done well in practicals, I think that I did okay for this practical. I had a few AHA moments and I even said "WOW" once. However, everyone else completed the practical long before I did, so maybe they were not as clueless as I made them out to be. In any case, I'm on the edge of my seat now, waiting to hear how I've done in this test.