Arcane Gazebo

Just call it entropy research

Posted by Arcane Gazebo at November 30, 2007 10:07 AM

I thought our lab was a mess, but it could be worse... via Chad Orzel, here's a chemistry professor (at UT San Antonio) whose lab had to be forcibly cleaned by the university:

“Clean your room or get out!” Words from a frustrated parent to a messy teenager? Not quite. The mess-maker in this case was a chemistry professor at the University of Texas, who ignored repeated warnings to clean up his dangerously cluttered lab space. When University officials decided to clean it themselves, the professor caused such a disturbance that campus police had to lead him away in handcuffs. The professor was eventually fired, which prompted a lawsuit claiming that the University retaliated against him and denied him equal protection.

The legal opinion notes that apart from the problems in the lab, the professor's office was an "extreme fire hazard", which still puts him a step below the physics professor here at Berkeley who actually set his office on fire. In any case, this makes me feel better about the disordered state of our lab. We cleaned it only a few months ago but it returns rather rapidly to equilibrium.

(I also want to point out that the legal blogger linked above is evidently a fan of Arrested Development, and has chosen the obvious pseudonym to use on his law blog...)

Tags: Academia, Lab, Science