The Final Countdown

"Robert, wait up!"

Sam Thompson quickened his pace to catch up with the fellow student walking ahead of him. "Are you ready for the final?" he asked when he reached him.

"Is anyone really ready for a final? Especially in this class. I studied some, but either I know it or I don't." They reached the door to the lecture hall.

Sam reached out his hand. "Good luck, hope you make it out alive."

"You too" Robert responded, shaking the offered hand solemnly. "If I don't survive, tell my family I love them. You have the contact details back in our dorm room."

They both filed through the door into the room and were handed a single sheet of paper each. Robert gave Sam a look of "This might not be so bad" but Sam was having none of it. They both took the nearest available seats and looked at their paper.

Renaissance Man 101 Final Examination

INSTRUCTIONS: Read each problem carefully. Do all of the problems. The time limit for the test is four hours. You may begin immediately.

1. Medicine: You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected.

2. History: Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially but not exclusively upon its social, political, economic, religious, and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific.

3. Public Speaking: Five thousand drug-crazed Aborigines are about to storm this classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.

4. Biology: Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with specific attention given to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system.

5. Music: Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat.

6. Engineering: The blueprints and tooling layouts of a Lockheed SR-71 have been placed on your desk. Build one and have it ready to fly by the time you start on question ten.

7. Sociology: What sociological problems might accompany the end of the world? Design and construct an experiment to test your theory.

8. Management Science: Define management. Define science. How do they relate? Create a generalized algorithm to optimize all managerial decisions. Assuming a HAL 11000 supporting 128 wired terminals and a server supporting 5K virtual terminals with each terminal to activate your algorithm, design the communications interface and all necessary control programs.

9. Psychology: Based on your knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following-Alexander of Aphrodisias, Ramses II, Gregory of Nicea, and Hammurabi. Support your evaluations with quotations from each man's work. It is not necessary to translate.

10. Political science: There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any.

11. Economics: Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan on these areas-Cubism, the Donatist Controversy, and the Wave Theory of Light.

12. Epistemology: Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your position.

13. Physics: Explain the nature of matter. Compare and contrast the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics with the Many Worlds Interpretation.

14. Philosophy: Sketch the development of human thought. Estimate its significance. Compare it with the development of any other kind of thought.

15. Mathematics: Discuss analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean metrization of infinitely differentiable Reimannian manifold. Also, prove Fermat's Last Theorem two different ways.

16. General Knowledge: Describe in detail, briefly, that which you know best. Must not be related to subjects in numbers 1-15.

Extra Credit: Define the universe. Give three examples.

Four hours later Robert stumbled out of the exam room and found Sam waiting in the hall. He was leaning against the wall, his eyes somewhat glazed over and hair still matted from sweating. He slogged over beside Sam and collapsed against the wall. "How do you think you did?" he asked.

"Better than last year" replied Sam. "I think I may pass this time. It sure helps when you get a teacher the second time who knows his stuff."

"I know" said Robert. "Professor MacGyver really knows how to present the material. Wait 'till you see the syllabus for the graduate class. I'm glad he's on our side."

The End

A/N: Okay, MacGyver may not be the acme of Renaissance Men but if I'm in a bind and need someone to get me out...