I Have a Doubt. What is a Doubt?

" Don't feel shy to clarify your queries. If you have any, donot hesitate to ask them." I haven't seen a professor (any damn lecturer in IITM is referred to as a professor by the students, for reasons the readers have to interpret) in IITM who hasn't told this to his students in some form or the other.

The B- Slot prof says 'alloy solidification', the name of a topic and nothing else; and people have a couple of 'Doubts' about it. Then he continues with the principle behind it-suddenly,I see a series of glittering faces,each with all the 32 teeth out- whence MSB 208 looks like a room where auditions for Close Up advertisement are taking place. The reason for this enlightment in the 'Young Genious' of the country is that they have heard of a similar concept in E-Slot a few days before and they recognise that they have heard of it. And as expected by you now, not by me then , a 'doubt' springs up: "Sir! Is this the same as the 'zone refining ' method that we have done in our E-Slot." Tone used in asking this so called doubt-needless to mention-"Don't worry. I knew about this since my childhood and how I pity my classmates that they donot know of this." If both the methods are the same how can they be named in two different ways. Moreover, the names of the topics suggest that one is a phenomena and the other one, a method. The prof answers saying ,"Not exactly..mmm...we use this principle in that method."The guy is quite happy about the prof's answer and his face is filled with subtle pride as his 'doubt' was well attended which indeed is a confirmation that his 'doubt' is a 'good' one. He achieved something.
One more example: Mr X asks Mr Y something about which he's almost sure that Mr Y wouldnot be able to answer, just because MrY didnot read the book that Mr X had, very rare of its kind. Wonder of wonders,Mr X has a feeling of satisfaction iff Mr Y doesnot answer him.Incase he does , Mr Y turns the arch rival of Mr X.

A person sincerely attends all the E-Slot classes, sits in the first bench, takes notes. Before the exam he comes to his friend's room on pretext of doubts,almost certain that he is better of the two. Incase of a flawless explanation for the 'doubt' by his friend, he would rule out his friend from becoming better of the two, by atleast saying that his way of explanation is somehow not very catchy.

One more guy, fanciful of using the word 'pedantic' in particular, and demonstrating his skills of 'english' in general creates some 'doubts' and asks the profs. Worst of all, he involves the entire class in his doubts. He is the self appointed representative of the class and by and large feels his 'doubts' are the 'doubts' of the entire class.

Just to make his presence felt , a guy asks 'doubts'. Just to make people believe that he is interested in something, a guy asks 'doubts'.

'Good doubts may yeild good grades. So keep on asking doubts, as repeated number of trials remove the noise (silliness) from the doubts .' This is Mr Z's logic. In an institute like IIT, though this is literally impossible with qualified teachers all around , there may be a meagre probability of this happening in labs. Some smart guys like Mr Z do try and exploit it. The whole point that they miss is what I call an 'efficiency factor'.

Until the incidents like these have taken place, I thought ,a person asks doubts if the instructor speaks something ambiguously or if he didn't understand what's being taught or if some concept as told by the instructor was understood but still unclear. I also thought that there should be an element of thought involved before asking doubts. But after all these incidents I've a doubt: What exactly is a doubt?If at all I were asked for an advice by any lexicographer, upon review of his dictionary, I would ask him to consider all these while defining the word "Doubt"
PS:No doubts on this topic shall be encouraged.