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posted by
cmn32480
on Sunday May 08 2016, @11:49PM
from the I-can't-solve-DiffEq-with-a-computer dept.
from the I-can't-solve-DiffEq-with-a-computer dept.
This just in from the front lines of the War on the Unusual:
University of Pennsylvania economics professor Guido Menzio was solving a set of differential equations on a plane departing the Philadelphia airport when the woman next to him surreptitiously passed a note to a flight attendant telling them she thought he was a terrorist because of the strange things he was writing on a pad of paper. The plane returned to the gate where he was questioned. At least this time the pilot had enough sense not to kick him off the flight.
Remember folks, if you see something say something!
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UPenn Professor Solving DiffEQ on Scratchpad Causes Plane to Return to Gate
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Monday May 09 2016, @08:41AM
Well, if he had written "I have a bomb.", that she read, then yes, that would pose a risk to the flight.
How? I would assume the fact that someone writes a statement like this down is not, or if at all then negatively, correlated to the possibility of actually having a bomb. If I had a bomb, I'd never write it down before lift-off. On the other hand, if I haven't got any, I might write it down while working on a comic, a punch-line for a joke, fooling around, working on a plot for a novel, whatever. And lift-off would be the time to get inspiration about such topics.
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2016, @12:58PM
> If I had a bomb, I'd never write it down before lift-off.
Because people with bombs are never looking for attention and are never conflicted about what they are doing.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Monday May 09 2016, @03:22PM
Getting a bomb into an aircraft shouldn't be that simple nowadays; I guess it would at a minimum require some cold-blooded planning and execution. Not the type of person who loses the nerve just before lift-off. To get attention with a bomb-threat, no bomb is necessary at all.
That said, I acknowledge that some other people are probably better at guessing how lunatics "think", I have no experience in that way of thinking :-)
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday May 09 2016, @05:02PM
(don't confront this guy)
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