Do you know The Porter Method?

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What is The Porter Method you may ask. It came about from my Sophmore chemistry class at Mobile Christian School. One of my absolute favorite teachers of all time Alvin Simmons was the instructor that would enlighten me about many things and really spark my interest in the physical sciences (I went on to get a Minor in Chemistry).

In our Chemistry class we constantly worked problems. Mr. Simmons would write a problem up on the blackboard and then we would all individually begin to work it. While we worked, Mr. Simmons would walk around taking a peek at each student's work and seeing if they had found the correct answer. Eventually he would have one of the students with the correct solution work the problem on the board for everyone's benefit.

Now I must say that many times I did achieve the correct answer.....but somehow I was often able to find the correct answer without having the correct solution (or maybe I should say the preferred solution).

This caused Mr. Simmons to often wonder how I could come up with the right answer the wrong way. Some of that Dr. Hain Magic Math I suppose (if you went CIS at USA you know what I'm talking about).

Thus he came up with the methods that one could take to find an answer.
There was:

• The Right Method
• The Wrong Method
• and The Porter Method

2 of which would yield the correct answer (just in entirely different ways). So really you have Mr. Simmons to thank for what is known as The Porter Method and that is where the name came from. (Thankfully over time my answers AND solutions started to match his...)