A Columbia University professor shocked his quantum mechanics class on Monday by stripping down to boxers, hugging his naked torso, and blaring a rap song over video footage of 9/11 and Nazi Germany playing on a large screen.

A professor shocked his class after stripping to his underwear as part of a larger performance to open his class on Monday.

In the video, the Columbia physics professor, reportedly Emlyn Hughes, also included a sequence in which two assailants dressed as ninjas blindfolded and then slashed and stabbed two stuffed animals perched on stools.

The bizarre incident, apparently intended as an object lesson on how students must drop their preconceptions in order to properly learn quantum mechanics, was captured on video by a shocked student.

“In order to learn quantum mechanics you have to strip to your raw, erase all the garbage from your brain and start over again,” said Hughes to the class.  “Nothing you have learned in your life up to now in any way has helped to prepare you for this.

WATCH: Professor strips to his underwear to open class on Monday

However, students who spoke with the official school newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, did not appear to be satisfied with his explanation for the perplexing performance.

“It was very disturbing and I don’t think anyone in the audience got what he was doing. He didn’t explain it or provide a context and that’s why it was offensive to me and to other people,” said student Maura Barry-Garland.

Another student, Danielle Niemann, said she initially wasn’t sure what was happening.

“I was very confused,” Nierman told the Columbia Spectator. “I didn’t know if it was the professor or some crazy person. I thought I was maybe asleep and it was a dream.”

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