Fifteen Minutes: You Want a Revolution?

The inside of the Science Center resembles a fun house, with its giant lenses and stretch and shrink mirrors. But for many, the outside revolving doors turn it into a House of Horror. Smudges of oil from smashed foreheads and noses cover its clear plastic sides like battle scars. Just this year, a freshman was wedged with a package half way in the door. When people enter with conflicting speeds, riders are forced to leap out to escape, and many end up bruising their heels and (the horror!) sharing one of the four compartments with a stranger. "I've seen a kid almost get cut in half," claims Milton E. Otto '03, a frightened Physics 15 student.

Entering the doors is like sliding into a jump rope game at the right time, between the rope hitting the floor and it hitting you in the face. Do you wait or do you rush? If you rush, you can become a human doorstop. If you wait, you're left hanging for a full rotation. Bea Beaulieu, a Science Center security guard who has been navigating the spinners for years, holds the secret to the rotating doors. "You have to scoot," she says, doing a sample "scoot" dance in her Wackenhut uniform. To "scoot," you need to be in tune with the beat of the door and move to its rhythm.

For incurable hot-doggers, there is a daredevil maneuver called The Superman. When students are filing out of class, you grab on to the hold-on bar in a compartment and do a mini chin up, lifting your legs to get airborne. Note: You need hordes of Chem 10 students spinning through the doors to fuel your flight. Without them, your free, dizzyingly enjoyable circular ride is going nowhere.

If entering the doors is like leaping into a jump rope sequence, two people in a compartment can make it as complicated as double dutch. Is it rude to squish up behind someone? "Damn straight, it's rude, " answers Pete A. Steciuk '03, who feels piggy-backing is a slimy, clumsy way to hit on someone.

Derisa J. Grant '03 hates all rotating doors, but she is particularly terrified by the ones in front of the Science Center. She says they are the fastest rotating doors she has ever expierienced. "Sometimes when the floors are slippery, I'm afraid."

There is something fundamentally mysterious about revolving doors. They are doors, and yet they can never be successfully knocked on, left open, or used to pull out rotten teeth. Moreover, they can take you right back to where you started. They are the campus's little turbines of doom, with faces smashed against their walls and students flying out of them, screaming. The "scoot" and The Superman are brave attempts to navigate these treacherous passageways, to tame the wild spinners.