The day before Thanksgiving in 1978, which was the same calendar date as today, November 21, professor Richard Rolleigh gave his Mechanics I class the exam below. I was in the class, I took the exam, and I did pretty well. But that was the last time that whole academic year that I did well on either homework or an exam, in Mechanics I and in Mechanics II. I'm still not sure why that was, maybe some sort of depression I was going through. I'm also not sure why the exam starts with 2.) rather than 1.), but it could be that this is a repeat of a test Dr. Rolleigh gave to a previous Mechanics I class, and he left out problem 1.) in giving my class the exam, and also added problem 7.), which was mimeographed not photocopied like the rest of the test.
What’s it all about, Lair-REE? Is it about receiving with simplicity all that happens to us? Or are Joel and Ethan Coen just messing with our minds (again) when they use that quote from Rashi as an epigraph at the beginning of A Serious Man, a movie that focuses on the troubles of Professor Lawrence “Larry” Gopnik, physicist and Jew? Larry seems to "receive with simplicity" and gets emotionally backhanded in a slapstick fashion every time. Key word: slapstick. Key word for this blog: phyziks.







