Sunday, May 31, 2009
At Dan's urging, I watched the first two episodes of LOST. Now I'm hooked! I became interested in the characters right away. Amazing how many quirky little mysteries arise almost immediately, some of which are then solved quickly, like the handcuffs, and others are left for the future. I found it to be intense, mysterious, dramatic, even funny. On the the next episode!
Saturday, May 23, 2009
What is science?
What is science?
The practice of science is divided into two great realms: Observation of the world around us, and explanation of the phenomena we observe. Some scientists do mostly or exclusively observation. Others propose and test theories. More about “testing” theories later.
Observation
This realm of science requires direct observation. It takes many forms as evidenced by the number of terms we use to describe the observations: phenomena, data, measurements, properties, evidence, laws.
Explanation
This realm of science invokes theoretical mechanisms which we cannot observe directly to explain the phenomena we can observe. It often takes one of three forms: hypothesis, theory, and model. There may be several reasons we cannot observe the mechanisms directly (too small, too big, too slow, too fast)
Each of these kinds of Observations and Explanations will be considered further in later chapters, but a few examples will be useful here:
For centuries humans have observed some very strange rocks shaped like animal bones and teeth, insects, plant leaves, even eggs and footprints. Many of these have been measured, catalogued, classified, and studied endlessly. All of that falls into the realm of observation. Of course, immediately upon discovering these “fossils” humans proposed hypotheses to explain their existence (Theories: God put them there or species evolved).
When early chemists started doing careful measurements (weighing everything in sight) they discovered that the total mass in any system was always the same before and after a chemical or physical change. They formulated a Law called the law of the conservation of mass. (A Law is just a summary of lots and lots of observations.) They also proposed hypotheses to explain why mass is always conserved (Theory: All mass is made of unchangeable atoms).
Early astronomers observed that all the heavenly bodies move across the sky from east to west. They also observed that most of them stayed in fixed position relative to each other night after night (called stars), but that a few of them changed their positions relative to the fixed bodies and to each other each night (called planets, or wanderers). They also proposed explanations for all this data. (Theory: The planets are attached to separate huge spheres that rotate around the earth independently of the sphere that all the stars are attached to.)
Early humans observed that different people behaved differently. They proposed explanations.(Theory: The way people behave is controlled by the stars they were born under.)
You can probably think of many, many, many other examples of observations made by scientists and everyday people. Some of them may not require explanations (theories). You may or not have theories to explain the observations. A lot of the fun of science is coming up with explanations, then trying to decide what evidence you need to suppport or refute your theory.
Question: Can a theory ever be proven?
The practice of science is divided into two great realms: Observation of the world around us, and explanation of the phenomena we observe. Some scientists do mostly or exclusively observation. Others propose and test theories. More about “testing” theories later.
Observation
This realm of science requires direct observation. It takes many forms as evidenced by the number of terms we use to describe the observations: phenomena, data, measurements, properties, evidence, laws.
Explanation
This realm of science invokes theoretical mechanisms which we cannot observe directly to explain the phenomena we can observe. It often takes one of three forms: hypothesis, theory, and model. There may be several reasons we cannot observe the mechanisms directly (too small, too big, too slow, too fast)
Each of these kinds of Observations and Explanations will be considered further in later chapters, but a few examples will be useful here:
For centuries humans have observed some very strange rocks shaped like animal bones and teeth, insects, plant leaves, even eggs and footprints. Many of these have been measured, catalogued, classified, and studied endlessly. All of that falls into the realm of observation. Of course, immediately upon discovering these “fossils” humans proposed hypotheses to explain their existence (Theories: God put them there or species evolved).
When early chemists started doing careful measurements (weighing everything in sight) they discovered that the total mass in any system was always the same before and after a chemical or physical change. They formulated a Law called the law of the conservation of mass. (A Law is just a summary of lots and lots of observations.) They also proposed hypotheses to explain why mass is always conserved (Theory: All mass is made of unchangeable atoms).
Early astronomers observed that all the heavenly bodies move across the sky from east to west. They also observed that most of them stayed in fixed position relative to each other night after night (called stars), but that a few of them changed their positions relative to the fixed bodies and to each other each night (called planets, or wanderers). They also proposed explanations for all this data. (Theory: The planets are attached to separate huge spheres that rotate around the earth independently of the sphere that all the stars are attached to.)
Early humans observed that different people behaved differently. They proposed explanations.(Theory: The way people behave is controlled by the stars they were born under.)
You can probably think of many, many, many other examples of observations made by scientists and everyday people. Some of them may not require explanations (theories). You may or not have theories to explain the observations. A lot of the fun of science is coming up with explanations, then trying to decide what evidence you need to suppport or refute your theory.
Question: Can a theory ever be proven?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Textbook short course, when Jeff comes home, and Jack pictures.
Having just read your lovely comments of support on an earlier post, I want to let everybody know I will be attending a Chautauqua course on text-book writing near the end of July. That is, unless Jeff is flying in one of those days, then I won't. Jeff, do you know what day you'll be arriving, and at which airport?
Ok, here are some pictures of Jack and his new friends Katie and Harry.
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