Big Questions in Science

Scientific revolutions Copernicus: the Solar System Newton: gravity Today's idea of unification

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• Oldest still working planetarium in the world, 1774-1781. • Reproduces the motion of the planets around the sun in real time.

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http://www.planetariumzuylenburgh.com/CZ/Collectie_Z/Globes/Blaeu/Blaeu_EN.htm

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The mechanism

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Technique: bridges, cathedrals, fountains, optics, cartography, machines

Artificio de Juanelo, 16th century Toledo, Spain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificio_de_Juanelo

• Medieval science (12th century renaissance): trust in human reason • Humanism of Renaissance:

• Challenge Aristotle • New neoplatonic ideas • Methodology • Value of technique

• Other factors: cities, trade, voyages, warfare.

Big Questions in Science, fall 2012. SdH, AUC 6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg_astronomical_clock

• Applying the machine principle everywhere in science: animal bodies as complex machines.

• Discovery of new worlds in the large and small scales: the universe is huge and packed.

Galileo showed all machines based on lever principle.

Kepler applied it to the planets (second law). “My aim is to show that the machine of the universe is not similar to a divine animated being, but similar to a clock.”

Galilei: also falling stones tick like a clock.

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Atoms. Cartesian geometry. “Most of the major steps forward in mechanics during

the seventeenth century involved the contradiction of Descartes” (Westfall).

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes

http://800millionparticles.blogspot.nl/2009/09/rene-descartes.html

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Big Questions in Science, fall 2012. SdH, AUC 10 http://www.redorbit.com/education/reference_library/space_1/universe/2574692/geocentric_model/

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http://astronomy.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=203863

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Explanation of retrograde motion

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Ptolemaic Model Simulation

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Big Questions in Science, fall 2012. SdH, AUC 15 Heliocentric model: Sun at the center

Planetary Orbit Simulator: Kepler’s First Law

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Phases of Venus

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Jupiter and its satellites: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto

Saturn’s rings Sunspots

Planetary Orbit Simulator: Kepler’s 2nd & 3rd Laws

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Newton-Principia-Mathematica_1-500x700.jpg

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Why does the Moon not fall on Earth?

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It is in constant fall but direction keeps changing.

Kepler’s laws follow

Big Questions in Science, fall 2012. SdH, AUC The Moon should behave as any other physical object, for instance an apple.

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Read the first page of Kuhn’s “Revolutions as Changes of World View”.

What does he mean by “scientists see… different things”, “scientists are responding to a different world”?

Give examples (dealt with in class and not dealt with in class).

Explain how the gestalt experiment relates to this.

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Clockwork universe Ptolemy geocentrism Copernicus: heliocentrism Gelileo: moons of Venus, Jupiter's satellites,

Saturn's rings, sunspots Kepler's laws Newton unifies heavens and earth: law of

gravity Scientific revolutions

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http://www.platypusart.com/

The Unity of Science

Goal: unity of knowledge. Place of science within the pursuit of truth. Common to modern science, Greek tradition,

Enlightenment. Unity of science can no longer be taken for

granted:

Exponential growth of factual knowledge.

Increasing specialization and fragmentation.

Skepticism towards grand unifying schemes.

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Big Question: what justifies our belief in the underlying unity of knowledge?

Interdisciplinary approach assumes this. Disciplines are communicating vessels.

Success of LAS program hinges on this assumption.

Possible answer: reductionism. Everything can be reduced to physics.

Reduction still the goal in the natural sciences.

Explain new kinds of phenomena: complexity, pattern formation, emergence, self-organization, information.

New paradigm includes cultural and social dimensions of natural science.

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Ethics, cosmos, logos:

Man is central to the stage of science

(Kuhn’s revolution).

Complexity of the world rooted on order accessible to human enquiry and experimentation.

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Education should reflect both order and complexity of nature.

Approach problems from a multitude of academic disciplines.

Adopt and adapt different methodologies.

Aim at synthesis.