One of
UCSD’s oldest myths may have just splattered on the
sidewalk outside Urey Hall. It’s the one about the professor
inspiring the first Watermelon Drop with his final exam question
on the
velocity of a watermelon dropped from the seventh floor. It seems
the history needs a little revision.
According to Professor Robert
Swanson, who taught physics to that pioneer freshman class, the
students first asked him to distribute a ballot for a Watermelon
Queen. He
inserted the ballot in the last page of his final. “I then
wrote the entire exam
with questions related to watermelons,” Swanson says, rewriting
the cherished sequence of events. “ Not an easy task, since
the subject matter was Electricity and Magnetism, not Mechanics.”
Regardless of which came first, the prof or the proof,
the freshmen of 1965 tossed the watermelon off the building,
measured the distance of the splat and have been doing it ever
since. The annual Watermelon Drop, which takes place in what is
now Revelle
College, has become
a wild pre-summer event. The Watermelon Queen Pageant is held the
night before to choose the lucky man who will have the honor of
dropping the melon.
The day of the drop is Friday of 10th week
this quarter.
The best official record is 30 years old when, in 1974, pieces
were found 167 feet 4 inches from the impact. Even though the myth
isn’t
completely accurate, the tradition will undoubtedly continue to flourish.
As Swanson says, “The myth is probably better than reality,
as is so often the case.” 
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