College: Introductory Chemistry at Duke

Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taugh

College: Introductory Chemistry at Duke


Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taught for about a zillion
years
by Professor Bonk (really), and his course is semi-affectionately
known as
"Bonkistry." He has been around forever, so I wouldn't put it past
him to
come up with something like this. Anyway, one year there were these
two
guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the
quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such that going into the
final
they had a solid A.

These two friends were so confident going into the final that the
weekend
before finals week (even though the Chem final was on Monday), they
decided to go up to UVirginia and party with some friends up there. So
they did this and had a great time. However, with their hangovers and
everything, they overslept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to
Duke
until early monday morning. Rather than taking the final then, what
they
did was to find Professor Bonk after the final and explain to him why
they
missed the final. They told him that they went up to UVa for the
weekend,
and had planned to come back in time to study, but that they had a
flat
tire on the way back and didn't have a spare and couldn't get help for
a
long time and so were late getting back to campus. Bonk thought this
over
and then agreed that they could make up the final on the following
day.
The two guys were elated and relieved.

So, they studied that night and went in the next day at the time that
Bonk
had told them. He placed them in separate rooms and handed each of
them a
test booklet and told them to begin. They looked at the first
problem,
which was something simple about molarity and solutions and was worth
5
points. "Cool" they thought, "this is going to be easy." They did
that
problem and then turned the page. They were unprepared, however, for
what
they saw on the next page. It said:

(95 points) Which tire?