A professor at a prestigious Ivy League university stripped down to his underwear in a packed lecture theatre in front of a screen playing footage of the 9/11 attacks.

Columbia University students were left dumbfounded as the professor took off his shirt and trousers while casually eating a banana at the beginning of a lecture on quantum mechanics, before curling into a ball on the stage as a stereo pumped out rap music.



Unorthodox Professor Emlyn Hughes told his class it was necessary to 'strip to your raw' to learn quantum mechanics.



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'Strip to the raw': The professor took his top off at the beginning of a quantum mechanics lecture at Columbia University before running footage of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks



But the professor did not stop at undressing in front of his students. 'How does this relate to anything?' Student attending Professor Hughes' lecture

His attention-grabbing lecture also saw two assistants bring two stuffed animals onto the stage, blindfold them, then impale one with a sword and fling it to the floor.

In video footage of his performance, one stunned student can be heard to say: 'What is happening?', while another asks: 'How does this relate to anything?'

Another bemused female undergraduate says: 'Is this real life?'



The video of Professor Hughes' lesson at the university in New York was uploaded onto the Bwog website, a New York Daily News report said.

It shows the lecturer removing his clothes to whoops and laughter from the shocked crowd, who are left further confused as his helpers bring out what appear to be two stuffed lambs.

An assistant then impales one of the animals against a backdrop of footage of a plane flying into the World Trade Centre.

Columbia University is located in the city where two planes hijacked by terrorists flew into the Twin Towers nearly 12 years ago, killing thousands.



'So many questions...' says one student, as the images appearing on the screen flick between Adolf Hitler, bombs, and Osama Bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader who became a major target of the War on Terror launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.



Unorthodox: A picture of Osama Bin Laden appears on the screen during Professor Hughes' lecture on quantum mechanics

Bizarre: One of the professor's helpers impales what appears to be a stuffed lamb against a backdrop of footage of a plane flying into the Twin Towers



The clip then shows Professor Hughes pulling out a microphone, which one girl in the audience initially mistakes for a gun.

Addressing the class at the end of his display, the lecturer said: 'In order to learn quantum mechanics you have to strip to your raw, erase all the garbage from your brain, and start over again.

'Nothing you have learned in your life up to now is in any way going to help prepare you for this, because everything you do in your everyday life is totally opposite to what you're going to learn in quantum mechanics,' he said.

'I've been tasked with the impossible challenge of having to teach you quantum mechanics in one hour - what basically the most brilliant minds, Einstein and so on, couldn't figure out working on it their whole life.

'So that's actually a bit of a big goal for today,' said Professor Hughes, before pointing out that all the students in attendance needed to pass quantum mechanics in order to gain their undergraduate degrees at Columbia.

'So it's probably worth looking into a little bit,' he added.



So far neither Columbia University nor Professor Hughes have responded to requests for comment, according to the report.

