Interviews

My colleague asked me to give a practice interview to his son who's applying to Cambridge to read Natural Sciences. This was quite a challenge as I'm not a scientist and would have no idea whether the boy's answers were correct. Anyway I managed to get hold of some real interview questions and went to see the boy. He answered the first question well: "How would you go about weighing your own head?" Of course I knew the answer in advance: completely immerse yourself in the bath and measure how much water is displaced, then immerse yourself but not your head, subtract the difference and apply the ratio to your weight.
The second question was trickier: "If you were sending a package to Australia, would it be quicker to drop it through a hole through the earth or to fire it into low earth orbit with a cannon?" The boy was grappling with the problems of friction, air resistance, the angle of the cannon etc, coming up with various equations. I pointed out to him afterwards that it didn't really matter what his conclusion was, it was the methodology which mattered. He must state his assumptions and then reach his conclusion. I am told that if you assume no friction, no air resistance, that the earth is a perfect sphere of equal density, the time of each method will be equal. (Of course I can't prove that!)
Meanwhile my colleague had to give a mock interview to his godson who's applying to Oxford to read Philosophy and Theology. The godson is a "nihilistic objectivist." When I asked my colleague what that meant, a long discussion ensued which concluded with him labelling me "a pathetic empathiser". Charming!