AND I WAS A LIBERAL ARTS MAJOR (edited)

We got an email (from someplace I can't name)  involving Texas curriculum standards. Witness:

"OK, I offer a free cold, refreshing beverage of your choice (snip) to the (snip) who can -- without using the Internet -- answer ANY of the following questions from the state's new college readiness curriculum standards for Texas:

• Use slopes to describe the steepness and direction of lines in the coordinate plane and to determine if lines are parallel, perpendicular or neither.
• Recognize and describe univariate and bivariate data.
• Describe and explain the significance of historical development of quantum theory, modern atomic theory, biological evolution and plate tectonics.
• Qualitatively and quantitatively describe Newton’s Law of Gravitation and the factors that affect the gravitational force between two objects.

(And for the record, they are all too hard for me.)"

And here were my answers, without the benefit of the InterWebs:

1) Parallel lines share at least one X coordinate, and never intersect. They also each bear the same Y coordinate for the entire line (ex. Line 1's Y is 5, Line 2's Y is 10), otherwise they would be a parabola. The degree difference is 0. Perpendicular lines share an X and Y coordinate, but only one, and one line measures 90º from the other. Parabolas would fall into neither.

2) Univariate has only one variable in play in an experiment, bivariate has two?

3) The significance of all these subjects is huge, as I don't have to tell you. Quantum theory has told us everything we know about black holes, as well as actually giving birth to atomic theory, since quantum mechanics have to do with matter in an indivisible state. Once we split the atom, bang, (so to speak), atomic theory. Plate tectonics have enabled us to predict natural disasters, as well as understand how the earth is held together, basically sheets of rock floating on magma that occasionally rub each other the wrong way.

4) I forget what qual- and quant- mean without looking it up, but I know the gravitational force between two objects is in direct proportion to the mass of both objects.

And now I can't remember my name.