Interpretations
Professor of physics Mark Silverman used what he called "The Barometer-Story formula" precisely for explaining the subject of pressure and recommended it to physics teachers. Silverman called Calandra's story "a delightful essay that I habitually read to my class whenever we study fluids ... the essay is short, hilarious and satisfying (at least to me and my class)."
Financial advisor Robert G. Allen presented Calandra's essay to illustrate the process and role of creativity in finance. "Creativity is born when you have problem to solve. And as you can see from this story there are many ways of solving a problem. Creativity is the art of looking for solutions that are out of the ordinary, different, unorthodox."
O'Meara used the barometer question to illustrate the art of steering students' activities to a desired outcome: "if the question is not aligned then the problem becomes an exercise of problem solving for its own value." The teacher can steer the students either through careful design of the questions (this rules out barometer questions), or through guiding the students to the desired choices. In case of the original barometer question, the examinator may explicitly say that the problem has more than one solution, insist on applying the laws of physics, or to give them the "ending point" of the solution: "How did I discover that the building was 410 feet in height with only a barometer?"
Herson used the Calandra account as an illustration of the difference between academic tests and assessment in education. Tests, even the ones designed for reliability and validity, are useful but they are not sufficient in real-world education.
Sanders interpreted Calandra's story as a conflict between perfection and optimal solutions: "We struggle to determine a 'best' answer, when a simple call to Building Superintendent (the resource man) would quickly provide adequate information."
Read more about this topic: Barometer Question