I'd never seen that before, that's excellent!

The original PDF is at https://www.unz.com/PDF/PERIODICAL/SaturdayRev-1968dec21/62/, which is includes a nice drawing of the student speaking with a building superintendent while holding a barometer, but to say more would be to spoil the punchline. Here is the text:

> Angels on a Pin
By ALEXANDER CALANDRA

SOME time ago, I received a call from a colleague who
asked if I would be the referee on the grading of an
examination question. He was about to give a student a
zero for his answer to a physics question, while the
student claimed he should receive a perfect score and
would if the system were not set up against the student.
The instructor and the student agreed to submit this to an
impartial arbiter, and I was selected.

I went to my colleague’s office and read the examination
question: “Show how it is possible to determine the height
of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.”

The student had answered: “Take the barometer to the
top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower the
barometer to the street, and then bring it up, measuring
the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height
of the building.”

I pointed out that the student really had a strong case
for full credit, since he had answered the question completely
and correctly. On the other hand, if full credit were
given, it could well contribute to a high grade for the student
in his physics course. A high grade is supposed to
certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm
this. I suggested that the student have another try at
answering the question. I was not surprised that my colleague
agreed, but I was surprised that the student did.

I gave the student six minutes to answer the question,
with the warning that his answer should show some know-
ledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not
written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he
said no. He had many answers to this problem; he was just
thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting
him, and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he
dashed off his answer which read:

“Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean
over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer. timing its
fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula S=1/2at^2,
calculate the height of the building.”

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up.
He conceded, and I gave the student almost full credit.

In leaving my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student
had said he had other answers to the problem, so I
asked him what they were. “Oh, yes,” said the student.
“There are many ways of getting the height of a tall building
with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could
take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the
height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the
length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of a
simple proportion, determine the height of the building.”

“Fine,” I said. “And the others?”

“Yes,” said the student. “There is a very basic measurement
method that you will like. In this method, you take
the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs, As you
climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer
along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and
this will give you the height of the building in barometer
units. A very direct method.

“Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method,
you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as
a pendulum, and determine the value of ‘g’ at the street
level and at the top of the building. From the difference
between the two values of ‘g,’ the height of the building
can, in principle, be calculated.”

Finally he concluded, there are many other ways of
solving the problem, “Probably the best,” he said, “is to
take the barometer to the basement and knock on the
superintendent's door, When the superintendent answers,
you speak to him as follows: “Mr. Superintendent, here I
have a fine barometer, if you will tell me the height of this
building, I will give you this barometer.’”

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not
know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted
that he did, but said that he was fed up with high
school and college instructors trying to teach him how to
think, to use the “scientific method,” and to explore the
deep inner logic of the subject in a pedantic way, as is
often done in the new mathematics, rather than teaching
him the structure of the subject. With this in mind, he
decided to revive scholasticism as an academic lark to
challenge the Sputnik-panicked classrooms of America.