- Where did Bartlet get his figures for how badly the U.S. is doing in math and science? [#411]
- "ML" posted on the West Wing forum at the Television Without Pity site the link to and the excerpt below from Education at a Crossroads 2000: Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Education and the WorkForce, U.S. House of Representatives, October 2000 (this is a huge file --- over 1 mg. covering 91 pages). Here is one of the points Bartlet was referring to:
- American 12th graders outperformed only two out of 21
countries in mathematics (Cyprus and South Africa); Not one country scored below the United States on the assessment of advanced mathematics. In Physics, 12th grade scores were also at the bottom. (from page v of the original printed report, page 6 of the the online pdf version)
- Did the Yale diploma Amy was trying to hang in her new office, look like a real Yale diploma [#418]? Here is a picture of a real Yale diploma:
- Pic of Yale University Diploma
"JuliaGulia" posted on the West Wing forum at the Television Without Pity site the above link.
- So can an egg stand on its end as they discussed in episode [#420]?
- Craig T. Fifer was the first person to write us about this and he sent the following urls:
Later after seeing the show all the way through, he followed up with the following: "I sent you http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/egg_spin.html#badegg , from
which C.J. quoted 'This has to be one of the silliest misconceptions
around, and it never seems to die.', about 50 minutes before she quoted it. She attributed it to www.thingsthatarewrong.com, which is registered
to Warner Brothers and is not a functional site."
- A few minutes later we heard from Matt Franz
who wrote: "An egg can be stood on end during the two equinoxes. However, in addition, they can be stood on end at any time of any day of the year as well. It's long been a wives tale that you could stand an egg on end only on the two days of the equinox. That is only partly true. See the following source. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/egg_spin.html#badegg"
- Jay Marshall seems to have let the show actually end before writing us, the following: "The entire egg line was very interesting to me as a science teacher. A few equinoxes ago I took the ³CJ² path of wonder and told them to go balance an egg. Another teacher said you could do it and found a web site from a high school that had pictures of balanced eggs AT OTHER TIMES OF THE YEAR. Between the final credits and the previews I went to my kitchen, got an egg and was unsuccessful in balancing it for two minutes. After the previews I got a different egg and had it standing in less than five seconds!! You can do this at any time of year. It actually depends more on the bumps on the eggs than the gravity of the Sun. I thought Toby was going to seize on this when he mentioned that on any day a part of the earth is in line with the sun, but he didn't. Balancing the egg on the felt of the poker table would also probably make it easier. I encourage people to just try this. NOW! Don't wait for the next equinox."
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Fourth Season References to Education
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