Assignment #2

Introduction to Physics (Physics 1010)

Adam Johnston

Due: Friday, September 12^th

Answer ONE of the following questions completely.  Your answer should be legible (typed would be great!) and will probably be about half a page in length.

Our place in space

Spielberg & Anderson state that sometimes, when truth is “too literally sought, it has been a severe handicap to the progress of science” (p. 19).  How could looking for the true reality of things be a handicap to finding scientific explanations?  Give an example.

Back when things were simpler

Aristotle described a very simple and easy to understand universe that was mostly accurate according to things you can observe with the naked eye.  So, what’s wrong with Aristotle’s system, based on what you can observe yourself?

The cutting edge?

Explain what “Ockham’s Razor” is and how it is used in science.  Give an example.

The starry messenger

Galileo never collected data that explicitly showed the path of planets or the Earth, but he is viewed as a major player in the promotion of heliocentric theory.  Explain how the work of Galileo helped to back up the work of Copernicus and Kepler.

As the world turns

We all know that there are 24 hours in an average day, but your book states that it takes the planet 23 hours, 56 minutes to rotate once on its axis.  Why is there this difference?  How do we account for these missing 4 minutes?  (Consider other motions of the Earth.)