www.UsHumans.net: Chapter 1
How and when the universe and the Earth began
Science
The purpose of this chapter is to describe something about scientists and to explain the scientific process. The facts given throughout the first two parts of the book have been obtained through science, so we want to know something about the technique of science. We may then be better able to determine the general validity of the scientific process and of its results. The general public is already familiar with the practical benefits of science because, every few minutes, each of us reaches for a machine or a medicine. In addition to those benefits, the knowledge and understanding obtained from science is mentally and spiritually rewarding. Science and art are both intellectual pursuits that are rewarding in themselves. They are things we humans do as we celebrate life. We humans are curious creatures. We have an innate capacity to notice, remember, understand, and predict patterns. These things are often described as memory, learning, and reasoning and are large parts of what it is that makes us human.
We have heard of those funny people called "scientists," but the only scientists most of us know are those strange persons found in a movie. What percentage of scientists dress funny and are forgetful, socially awkward, and unaware of the weekday? It is natural that those of us who make movies know far more about other movie-makers than we do about scientists or of the scientist's passion for the knowledge of nature. Scientists show the same range of personalities and characteristics as occurs in all other persons.
Our understandings of nature and of us humans have been obtained by these scientists. Each scientist takes the results of the previous generation of scientists, adds something to it, and passes the increased knowledge onto the next generation. As we strive to understand a newly discovered aspect of nature, we usually fumble around in the dark for a while as we try to make sense of it. Once it is understood, soon everyone else on the planet also knows about it, and we never un-learn anything. Throughout history, the use of each new tool soon spread around the planet. Today’s science and technology is the sum of all the facts, procedures, and understandings ever obtained by any person on the planet.
Scientists do science because they want to understand how the world works. More than that, they feel that they cannot live without coming to understand the world. They are happy only when they are learning more. Many scientists work to acquire knowledge and understanding much more than they work to acquire money. You might suspect that your children will become scientists if you often see them intently observing "simple" things such as a butterfly or a drop of water. (In the past such behavior might have seemed strange enough to get some of us locked in the attic.)
Many scientists will work eighty hours per week for years with a single-minded obsessiveness in pursuit of this knowledge. You know that feeling of confusion you have as you are trying to figure out a complicated problem; it is like a painful knot inside your head. The obsessed scientist has this feeling throughout most of the day and sort of becomes addicted to it. The end of a good day's work means that you are so mentally exhausted that voices dance on their own through your head (this is nirvana). These obsessed workers are aware of each minute that they are not working and become panicked if just a few minutes are spent away from their work for "no-good reason." Such an obsession is not anything new. For example, it was the cause of the death of Archimedes. He lost his life while working on a mathematical problem and refusing to pay due attention to a Roman soldier who was anxious to question him (see Watchers of the Sky, by Patrick Moore).
After a scientist has seen important questions–for example, the question of the origin of the universe–then everyday questions like getting there via Main street or Broadway, or the color of today's shoes and shirts, even material pursuits, become unimportant. In fact, the scientist sees that her own life is but a very small part of the universe. This is a very humbling experience and often results in the scientist's behavior being mistaken for either boredom or arrogance. The scientist prefers to spend time only on the most important questions.
Those of us humans who build roads and construct buildings feel a sense of accomplishment when we see the results of our work. We hope that it will last for decades, even centuries. Scientists build understanding, and hope that it will be useful for people for decades, even centuries, to come. For example, electricity and antibiotics will be useful for all humans for centuries to come. An explorer wants to go where nobody has ever been. A scientist wants to know and understand what has never been known or understood–to think what has never been thought. Scientists feel as explorers do when they are the first to understand a phenomenon. They jump up and down and scream and shout when they have come to understand a piece of the universe. They also scream and shout when they break their instrument just before they would have been able to understand a new piece of the universe. And they scream when politicians close down projects, like the Texas Supercollider, with the result that they can't even search for the still-undiscovered phenomena of nature.
The current state of our understanding of the universe is the result of the lifetime's efforts of thousands of scientists who have been working for the last five centuries. These scientists have studied–that is, they have measured–millions of species of plants and animals, millions of stars, millions of physical phenomena, millions of chemicals, millions of fossilized bones, millions of archaeological artifacts from previous cultures, and they have observed millions of facts concerning living cultures. For example, in the Human Genome Project biologists have just recently finished the Herculean task of studying the 3.6 billion letters in human DNA. Scientists completed this task in just twelve years.
By the way, the PBS televison series Race, see www.pbs.org/wnet/dna/episode3, discusses genes and race: a person's appearance–ear shape, hair color, height potential, skin color, nose size, and eye shape and such–is determined by perhaps one part in one-thousand of his or her genetic makeup. Where we instinctually place much weight on the outer appearance of an individual, we are analyzing but a small fraction of that individual's genetic makeup. The vast majority of our genes produce our bodies with cells, arms, legs, eyes, hearts, and livers and the other organs. This means that two human individuals are 99.9% genetically identical. Two unrelated individuals differ by only about 30 out of 30,000 genes, which is a difference of 0.1%. This is true whether or not those two individuals are of the same race, come from the same hometown, or come from opposite sides of the Earth. We now know how thoroughly we share the genes that make us human. Two siblings differ by half of that 0.1%. This also means that a stranger from the other side of the planet is only twice as different from you as is your sibling. Gathering five persons from throughout the planet produces no more variety than gathering five siblings. What is the percentage difference in genetic makeup between men and women, between members of an extended family, or between humans and chimpanzees? It is often mentioned that humans and chimpanzees share 97% of their genes. This means that the two species differ by only about nine hundred genes. The 0.1% difference between unrelated human individuals is 3% as great as the 3% difference between humans and chimpanzees. Even humans and mice share 85% of their genes because most genes make lungs and livers and such. We animals are not all that different from each other, we mammals are even less so, and we primates have the least differences of all.
Scientists have gathered billions of facts. At first, many of these facts seemed to have no relation to any of the others. Eventually, scientists were able to deduce a handful of basic, underlying principles of nature that explained all those facts and revealed their interrelations. In the next chapter we will see how all phenomena involving motion, heat, electricity, magnetism, light, sound, and energy are simply different manifestations of one underlying aspect of nature. In Chapter 5 we’ll see that evolution explains all biological phenomena. Much of psychology and anthropology are different manifestations of the biology of the brain.
Scientists make measurements, form conclusions, and then make additional measurements to further test and refine those earlier conclusions. They will repeat endless cycles of measuring, concluding, and further testing as they move ever closer to understanding. They continually decide what should be next measured to further test conclusions. Every conclusion is tentative because the next measurement might prove it to have been incomplete or even wrong. As soon as a scientist believes something to be 100% true then that person is no longer a scientist. Each measurement and conclusion is reviewed by other interested scientists and is subject to verification or disagreement. The goal is continually to refine measurements and conclusions to gain a more accurate understanding of a phenomenon. “Truth” and our level of understanding is measured by counting the number of significant figures in repeatable measurements.
Scientists operate from a fundamental base of well-understood phenomena. These are the things that they all agree on. Luckily, there is also a never ending list of newly discovered phenomena that are incompletely understood. When scientists recognize a new phenomenon of nature they will make a list of things that might produce or affect that phenomenon and then do experiments designed to vary just one listed item. In this way they measure each listed variable's affect on that new phenomenon. This tells them if any of the items did cause, or at least affect, that new phenomenon. The measurements from each new experiment reveal clues to the nature of the phenomenon.
Scientists show every human characteristic and emotion as they debate and compete at the frontiers of knowledge. They will always argue and disagree about the not-yet-understood aspects of nature. There is disagreement while measurements are revealing more of the true nature of the phenomenon. For example, look at a picture that is hanging on the wall, except, imagine that most of the picture has been covered by hundreds of little square tiles. Each scientific experiment reveals more about a phenomenon in the same way that more of that picture is revealed by removing a randomly chosen square. Until enough squares have been removed there will be a debate about the contents of the picture. Some might argue that it is a picture of a giraffe eating a railroad car while others think the picture shows a bush listening for a bee. One feature of doing science is that the pieces of the picture are revealed in random order. The full picture is not understood for days or weeks–in fact, it usually takes many years. If you like mysteries, then you might enjoy a career in science. Nature provides the most interesting mysteries.
An example will help to illustrate this "scientific process." Let’s make a pendulum by attaching a weight to the end of a string or rod. Hold the string while letting the weight hang straight down. If you next pull the weight to one side, keeping the string taught, and then release it from an initial angle, it will swing back and forth in a repeating motion under your hand. When you first release the weight, it has a speed of zero. Gravity pulls it down and it begins to speed up as it falls. However, it does not fall straight down because the string is also pulling on it, causing it to take a circular path. The weight’s speed is greatest as it passes through the low point in its motion and then decreases back to zero as it rises. The falling and rising motion repeats. The combination of the downward force of gravity and the upward force of the string causes the weight to swing back and forth in a periodic motion. The "period" of the pendulum is the time it takes for it to make one complete cycle of motion. A scientist begins to study the phenomenon of the periodic motion of the pendulum by making a list of variables that might affect the pendulum's period. Its period might be affected by the length of the string, the angle at which it is initially pulled aside, the size of the weight, or how heavy it is. First we guess which things might affect this phenomenon and then we make measurements to find out if any of them in fact do so; we’re often surprised to find that nature behaves differently then we had naively guessed. We also find out the relative sizes of any affects. Through measurements we find that as the size of the weight increases there is an increase in the force of air resistance that acts to stop its motion. (Since air resistance is really a separate phenomenon from the repeating motion of the pendulum, its study is left for another experiment seeking to understand air resistence, not pendulums). Next we will determine if any of the three variables–length, weight, and initial angle–have an affect on the period of the pendulum. We will look at just the first few oscillations of the pendulum so that the frictional force of the air resistance, which eventually stops the pendulum, will not swamp the affects of these other three variables. First, we will keep the length of the string, and the initial angle constant but measure the period for various weights. You might like to try this. Surprisingly, it turns out that the period is the same for large and small weights. You may have heard about large and small weights falling at the same rate; the pendulum's weight is similarly falling though it happens to be tied to a string that makes it fall in an arc instead of falling straight down. Next, the weight is kept constant while the period is measured for many different string lengths. The scientist searches for a mathematical relationship between the measured string lengths and periods. It is found that the period increases as the square-root of the string's length: a long pendulum swings more slowly than does a short one. Lastly, the pendulum's period is found to be unaffected by the initial angle as long as that angle is kept below about 10 degrees. For larger angles, a mathematical "elliptical function" relates the period to the initial angle. By the way, the period of the pendulum is also found to vary inversely with the square-root of the planet’s force of gravity; pendulums swing more slowly on the moon than they do on the Earth.
In this example, we have used the scientific process to determine the relations between the period of a pendulum and its weight, string length, and initial angle. Everyone who repeats this experiment will obtain the same results because nature always behaves in the same manner. People do get different results when they try to build machines–a clock for example–out of pendulums. This happens because each engineer has a different amount of success at canceling the effects of friction and of temperature change (the length of the pendulum changes as its temperature changes).
Pendulums have been observed for centuries. In 1583, Galileo (see http://galileo.rice.edu) used pendulums to time the motion of spheres rolling down inclined planes. He first got the “clocking” idea while watching the swinging motion of church chandeliers. To time the duration of events he also counted heartbeats or counted water drops emerging from a small hole in the bottom of a container. In 1657, Christian Huygens first made a clock out of a pendulum.
The pendulum example involves just a few variables. Each variable's affect on the period is directly–and independently–measured. Sometimes a physical system is difficult to understand because it involves several heavily interacting components that are not as easily isolated as were the variables in the pendulum experiment. In these more complicated situations, we can often gain understanding of the whole by finding less complicated regions of the system where only two of the components interact heavily while the others interact just slightly. This approach begins to reveal how all of the components interact.
Physical phenomena are the easiest to study because they usually involve a small number of variables, while biological, economical, and sociological phenomena involve thousands–or even billions–of variables. For example, when scientists try to determine the cause of cancer they are faced with countless variables, and it is more difficult to isolate single variables than as could be done with the simple pendulum. Even the tiniest biological phenomenon is incredibly complicated. But it is understandable when its entire process is broken into a series of smaller, individual steps. Each biochemical phenomenon involves a long list of complicated chemical reactions. The operation of your thyroid gland, or its reaction to an increase in any single chemical, involves a series of many interacting chemicals.
Scientific results often include estimates of the accuracy of the conducted experiments. This is done because there is always an uncertainty in the last measured digit whenever one makes a measurement. For example, measure the length of a pencil with a ruler. The ruler's smallest division might be one-sixteenth of an inch (or it might be one-tenth of a centimeter) and the end of the pencil might fall about one-third of the way along one of those smallest divisions. But it is hard to tell exactly because sometimes it looks like it may be one-quarter of a division instead of one-third of a division. The usual rule-of-thumb is to take the experimental uncertainty to be one-half of the smallest division of your measuring instrument. The measurement of the length of the pencil might be written as 6.33 plus or minus 0.05 centimeters–that is, its length is measured to be within 0.05 cm of 6.33 cm. In the same way, you can read your car's speed meter, and your bathroom scale, accurately to about half the smallest division of the scale. If you weigh yourself before, and again after, drinking a glass of water then you will find that the scale has trouble distinguishing that change in weight. Most scientific measurements are accurate to about one-tenth of a percent, but today's best measurements are accurate to one part in one hundred billion. In comparison, one hundred billion seconds is a 30,000-year time span. It's hard to imagine measuring a 30,000-year time span and being accurate to within one second.
Scientists are concerned the accuracy of their measurements for a few reasons. They want to compare their results with those of other scientists, and they want to compare their measurements to the numbers obtained from theoretical equations. For example, if one can measure accurately to 0.1% then the results are expected to be within 0.1% of theoretical predictions; otherwise, something is wrong with either the theory or the experiment. Another use is that if one can measure accurately to just 1% then it is meaningless to worry about affects accounting for less than 1% of the system’s development. This is the reason we were able to ignore air resistence in the pendulum experiment above.
A mathematical square-root was mentioned in the above discussion of the pendulum. When the ancient Greeks found a mathematical relationship for the ratio of the lengths of two wires that produce successive musical notes they were surprised that nature could be modeled by mathematics. (For more about this, visit www.aboutscotland.com/harmony/prop.html.) Why can nature be modeled mathematically? Is nature mathematical? In addition, some scientists wonder whether mathematics exists on its own or if it is simply invented. Humans model the universe with mathematics because this allows them to more accurately understand nature and to build more useful machines and medicines. The beings who might live in the Andromeda galaxy will use very different mathematics. We use forms of mathematics like arithmetic, calculus, group theory, and topology. There is no way to predict the Andromedian's approach. We all wish we had more imagination in developing additional forms of mathematics. Humans will benefit greatly–after they learn to stop staring–when they first get to discuss mathematics with that Andromedian mathematician named Greshkwag.
As much as we hate to admit it, our imagination is limited. An example of our limited imagination is that we cannot think of a new color–not simply "sand-dab melon chardonnay" but a new color, one that does not contain red, green, orange, violet, or blue. Even more telling about ourselves is the fact that we cannot think of new emotions or behaviors for ourselves that are not already innate to a human. (We also have trouble imagining how a being could think or could choose behaviors without using language to do so.)
Scientists test our assumptions about nature by making numerical measurements of phenomena. For thousands of years, we have sat in our "arm chairs" imagining how nature works. We tried to reason logically and to keep our newly developed deductions logically consistent with our previous deductions, but we have been constantly surprised to find that nature behaves very differently than we had naively expected. Quite often, nature has been found to behave in a way that nobody had imagined. For example, no physicist could have guessed how either atomic-sized or fast-moving objects interact. ("Fast" objects are those moving at more than 90% of the speed of light; they are also said to be moving at “relativistic” speeds because they are in the realm of Einstein’s theory of relativity, see www.einstein-online.info/en.) Instead, we find out the actual ways of nature as we make measurements. The equations of quantum mechanics and relativity numerically describe the way nature was found to behave when scientists measured these things, just as was done for the pendulum. No matter how many logical reasons we can think of that objects should be able to move faster than the speed of light, we have never observed any object doing so in nature despite the fact that millions of high speed particles are observed in elementary particle accelerators every single day. (For information about quantum mechanics, visit http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/VMS/Samples/particles.ram.)
Throughout history the operation of the brain has been subject to much arm-chair debate. Today’s scientific measurements are finding that the operation of the brain is very different from the expectations produced from our previous, logically-deduced, arm-chair debates. The actual operation of the brain is being found to be much more incredible than any arm-chair philosopher had imagined. This is another example of how we are surprised when we make measurements and find out how nature actually functions. Just recently we have become able to make measurements on brains as they are in the process of thinking, feeling, and remembering and such, as will be further described in Chapter 8.
A scientist studies one of the following four fields: matter and its motions and interactions, plants and animals, chemicals, or people and our societies. From these studies emerge an understanding and appreciation for nature and for human beings along with clues about our place in the universe–along with some useful machines and medicines. A scientist will learn the general, underlying principles that explain the millions of previously-measured facts within one of these fields, and then become an expert at a more specific aspect of that field. A single scientist knows a tiny, tiny fraction of all of the known facts of a given field, but will know a meaningful percentage of the facts within one specific aspect of a field. For example, a particular biologist learns the general principles of plants and animals, then thoroughly studies hundreds of species and becomes an expert at a small number of them or of a certain aspect of them.
Science is done by performing repeatable experiments. An experiment is repeatable if everyone who does the same experiment obtains the same result. It then means that the aspect of the world just studied is in fact an aspect of the world and not just a figment of our wishful imagination. In addition to the reward that comes from understanding the world, this will then mean that a machine or a medicine can be built that makes use of this repeatable aspect of nature. It used to take decades before a machine might be based on a new understanding. Today there are business persons who are more quick to make machines that are based on each newly understood phenomena. Whenever you hear the word "science" you should think of "facts and understandings learned from repeatable experiments." When you see scientists explaining a fact or a phenomenon that they think they learned from doing experiments you should decide if others can repeat those experiments and come to the same conclusion.
If a person describes a process that cannot be repeatedly measured then they are probably not describing reality. The complete lack of repeatable, measurable results is the reason that scientists complain about such things as paranormal phenomena, extra sensory perception (ESP), and communication with the dead. Scientists have never been successful in their attempts to measure these phenomena. If they cannot be repeatedly measured then they cannot be understood as real events or used to make machines or medicines. Many persons (like my friend John) like to point out that as much as we would like for ESP, telekinesis, mind-reading, astrology, and paranormal phenomena to be real things, none of these have improved the quality of life of the general population. They have not solved a single social problem or even built a single building. In contrast, science and technology have enabled our modern civilization.
Whenever an object's motion is changing there is always a force responsible for that change in motion. Physicists have found only five forces in nature: gravity, electricity, magnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. If there was a force that could allow a person to move an object by mental concentration then that force would most likely have revealed itself long ago. For telekinesis to be a real phenomena, it would have to operate through a force that has not revealed itself in any other way. This is unlikely. Physicists spend their entire lives doing nothing except studying forces and would be thrilled to find a new force to study. Does this “telekinesis force” do nothing except move objects by mental concentration. We will see that the electrical force is responsible for millions of different phenomenon, from rainbows to x-rays, and governs all of chemistry. In particular, it holds together the molecules of life and governs much of the interior workings of our bodies. This means that a human is just an example of one of nature's electrically governed molecule-machines. The existing forces of nature make the operation of the molecule-machine possible. Every force that is present today has existed since the beginning of the universe and evolution has been making use of all of them since its beginning.
Since we have no experience with extra sensory perception, it is hard to even imagine what it would be like to have an additional sense. It is much easier to imagine what it would be like if we had fewer senses; this exercise may broaden our understanding of our own senses. If you take away our sight, hearing, sound, and senses of touch and smell, then you are left with a life-form such as a plant or a tree. A plant would consider sight or touch to be a case of extra sensory perception. Plants have never seen, heard, or felt an animal; yet they have developed thorns to keep them away and fruit to entice them to carry away their seeds–and stickers to force them to do so. Their seeds also blow away in the unseen, unheard, and unfelt wind. Though plants do not see, one has grown an appendage that has the appearance of a bee; this attracts bees that the plant then eats. This plant has no sense of sight. It has never seen a bee but it has managed to evolve such that it takes full advantage of light. In the same way, flowers attract insects with light–that is, with their appearance–even though flowers cannot see. (Visit www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orchid/smarts.html to view the PBS video A Plant with Smarts, explaining how the appearance and released odors of orchids entice insects and other animals to help it reproduce.) To a plant, light is another sense. If there were other, useful ways that we animals could take advantage of natural phenomenon then it's likely that we would have already done so–just as plants have taken advantage of light. Plants are actually evidence against the existence of extra sensory perception in humans. We would all have these extra senses already. There is no reason that just a few members of our species would be so different.
When scientists talk of things that are well understood, it means that their statements stand on the evidence obtained from thousands to billions of measurements. They are often describing unbelievable but true phenomena. When people describe paranormal phenomena they are talking about something that stands on the testimony of a single person and is often contradicted by many scientifically repeatable measurements. It is something that would be neat if it were true but it is never as interesting as the phenomena that the scientists have found to be true. The actual workings of nature are always more interesting than our imaginary devices. For example, the intricate workings of quantum mechanics, relativity, and DNA are far more interesting than are “magic wands."
In the following chapters, I will often stress the large number of facts from which scientist's statements have derived, and mention the lifetime's of effort involved in the study of these facts. The purpose of this is to show that the basic statements of scientists stand on thorough understanding and firm ground. This is stressed so that the reader will be aware of the difference between the measurement-backed statements made by scientists and the non-measurement-backed statements made by someone describing paranormal phenomena and such. For example, it is fun to hear of the lost continent of Atlantis. An "Atlantis researcher" will present a dozen logical explanations and describe possible locations. But this meager amount of information does not compare to the millions of facts that a geologist can present concerning the well-understood positions, features, sizes, and movements of the continents, oceans, and ocean floors throughout the history of the Earth. In fact, today's satellites "see" the entire ocean floors and watch the continents slowly move around the surface of the Earth. To see images and movies of the ocean floor, you might like to visit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) websites at www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/announcements/announce_predict.html, www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/2minrelief.html and www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/gallery/maps/maps.html. Global topography data, images, and movies are available at www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/global.html. If you are wondering if a scientist is talking about something that "stands on firm ground" just ask that person "Is this something that is well understood and generally agreed upon, or is this something that is incompletely known and still subject to opinion?" That scientist will be happy to explain further about the range of opinions and the nature of the accumulated evidence.
What are the differences between scientists, artists, and engineers? Scientists perform experiments in an attempt first to discover and then to understand new aspects of nature. A physicist might make a new machine or measuring device that has never existed before and use it to measure a newly reachable part of nature. They then find equations that describe the measurements. Physicists don't make equations for everyday machines; that's what engineers do. Engineers make machines that are based on existing understandings. They imagine new uses for old understandings.
After a particular scientist has measured a new aspect of nature, this new information becomes part of our base of knowledge and serves as a springboard in searching for additional aspects of nature. Scientists use their imaginations first to figure out what should next be measured and second to guess the results of those upcoming measurements. As they repeatedly guess and measure, they are refining their understanding of the phenomenon. If a particular scientist had never lived, those aspects of nature will still be measured by someone else–and probably within a few years because it often occurs that most everyone's efforts are directed at the current frontier of understanding. Nature has many aspects, each of which still exist even if we never measure them. Individual scientists alter the timing of discoveries and the naming of newly measured phenomena. Scientists use their imagination in building knowledge that has never before existed.
Artists use their imagination to create things that would have never otherwise existed in the universe. Art bounces back and forth between individual artists and gets changed during the process. An individual artist can alter the direction of flow in a specific art; sometimes one artist will create an entirely new form of expression. Art and science are both intellectual activities but art more often involves physical talent, too. All of the understandings, procedures, and arts of humans change through time as they bounce between individuals. The physicist Richard Feynman explains that scientists use their imagination to guess the true reality of nature while artists use their imagination to invent a reality that does not otherwise exist. Feynman says he once tried to write a novel but found himself to be a very mediocre writer.
My friend Justin Hoenke creates music (to hear some samples, visit www.rockerie.com/thescene/bands/225 and www.myspace.com/belsapadore). When I asked him how he creates something out of nothing he answered that he sometimes wonders if he should more often “focus on things that do exist instead of living as he does in a pseudo dream world.” He said that time and time again he has thought about how and why he creates but the more he searched the further he was from the reason he started in the first place. He started making music because he loved to hear music. Since he had always been a creative kid, music and his creativity just fell together. Justin likes how music brings a smile to a person’s face as they hear it. He likes how it makes the hairs on his arm stand up when listening to something he really enjoys and wants to do that for everyone with his own music. He explains that a lot of the first songs he wrote were based on positive and negative experiences he had had. Since he wasn't an open person and held things in, music was a way of saying things. During his Zomo days, see (hear) www.myspace.com/zomo, he let “all that he wanted to say stay inside until he wrote those angry songs.” Then, “Belsapadore started off as me trying to find my footing in the world and slowly it's becoming me saying what I want to say when I want to say it and not letting it boil up inside of me. I guess it's all some kind of journey that I'll understand someday.” When I asked about creative techniques, Justin said that each artist has their own method in which they feel most comfortable working, but the goal is really never to feel comfortable in the way you create or you might get into some kind of routine that just leads to the same thing over and over again. Justin says that through a several-year period he relied on the pure emotion of a moment to craft a song. He said that he would wait around for or even create incredibly intense, emotional moments and then capture them in song. He wrote a few hundred songs this way. But after awhile, it got to be a real drag on his personal life because, as he lived for these moments he was in turn killing himself for art. He realized that he wasn't happy with the newer songs because most of them were created out of habit. He then began working in isolation on new songs that didn't rely on these moments of intense experience. He says that “The only thing that could then inspire me would be me.”
Scientists measure everything from motion to society, even love
Scientists measure many details of our own emotions and behaviors–but not how to behave. They study everything, even love is a topic of scientific study. The topic of our own emotions and behavior is subject to many rumors, partially true stories, and guess work by each of us. This happens because we accumulate our own experiences and form our own descriptions of these things. A scientific study can add to our own somewhat-vague notion of love by providing concrete facts determined by measurement and by discussion with many different persons. It's also fun to find out how similar or different we are from others and about the range of characteristics in people. It's fun for us to learn about the amount of variation in these things from one person, or one culture, to the next. The scientist also has fun making measurements to learn more exactly what is occurring. It should at least be fun for us to know that there are people who actually think such a study is fun. For example, see www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/danfords2002/documents/fraley1.pdf.
A scientist will ask specific questions like how many times does a person fall in love, how do we fall in love, and what sorts of chemicals are going through our brains while this is happening. For example, it has been found that we have elevated levels of certain chemicals during the first two years we are in love with a person. Do you think you feel differently during the first two years of being in love? Every child asks his or her parents how to know if he or she is in love. Scientific studies make more concrete our vague notions, sometimes verifying what we already suspected about ourselves. Have you noticed that we often fall in love in steps. First, we enjoy this certain person's company. We begin to pay attention to every detail of their movement and behavior, and soon, we can think of nothing else besides this person. We have a tender first-kiss which we might replay in our mind every few seconds through the next week. During each replay in our mind, we see the other’s face and feel the soft press of lips. We are unable to focus on our work except for ten seconds out of every three minute period, and we can’t sleep. Scientists find that the chemical oxytocin is being produced and released within our brains. It is enabling this extraordinary power of concentration and is forging our love. We are now fiercely smitten. The beauty of this person becomes more pronounced and we become unaware of the existence of all other persons. Everything around us that used to be dull and boring suddenly takes on a new brightness; an old familiar song now sounds different. Finally, we never want to be away from this person. We feel that the universe was made for the two of us and that compared to love, what does the universe matter; without our love, their would be no universe. Did you experience any of these steps? In what way is falling in love different for you?
Notice that as you replay in your mind the sight of this person’s face and the press of your lips that no words are being spoken: the feeling you are experiencing is older than words. For a few million years, our ancestors were falling in love–and being in love–without holding a single conversation. Did they communicate with tender tones? As you hug your loved one, you feel as if you have everything needed in life. Everything else in the world seems to evaporate and your troubles disappear. The comfort you feel at that moment has been occurring during such hugs for millions of years. Do the members of every hugging and nudging species experience the same feeling? In the following chapters, we will be looking into our biological past to gain insight into human nature. There is evidence to suggest that we developed full speech, consisting of thousands of words, only about 50,000 years ago but we have been a monogamous species for more than one million years. As you fall in love with your lifelong spouse, which of the above steps to falling in love do you think could happen without any words at all? Which steps could not be accomplished before our communication abilities had grown to include fifty words and gestures? What would have been the fifty most important things in life, and so would have been among the first fifty things to have been verbally named? What are the fifty most important things to you? Would our first fifty words have included such things as hello, mom, yes, love, food, group, war, and profit? Did love not exist before fully formed speech had developed? Is there love today?
Scientists also find that there are changes in internal chemical levels during these processes, as there are during every other process. There are countless, published volumes of measurements involving the process of love. Are these measurements useful? Will we be able to make a machine or medicine from these studies? Certainly we want to know more about ourselves and to understand ourselves more accurately and more completely–whether or not this understanding can be used as the basis of a business that might earn great profits. Scientists study love because the more thoroughly we understand it, the more beautiful it becomes. Our poets will never stop describing love. Love is a large part of what it is that makes us human. For many of us, it is our most precious part.
The range in cultural influences of love gives us clues about human nature. Some of today's Western people are confused by the arranged marriages of some of the world's cultures in the East. The arranged marriage is a social union between two extended families, not just two individuals. The goal of the marriage arrangers is to improve the lot of the extended family relative to that of all other extended families. The arrangers have in mind that the extended family of the selected spouse will be good for our extended family, so we’ll marry our child and theirs. As my friend Anti likes to explain, a person of a culture employing arranged marriages might describe love as a pot of water that slowly comes to boil, while a Western person might instead describe a marriage as a flare that starts very bright and then subsides in time. Do you agree with these descriptions? You might like to compare your description with that from other persons.
Scientists also make measurements that give us a more accurate notion of our social systems. Some of these measurements involve the following aspects of society. How many times per day an individual laughs and jokes, smiles and cries, fights and makes up, feels empathy or sympathy, thinks about reproduction, helps friends and strangers, is proud or shameful, decides if a potential behavior will be right or wrong, considers the impact of an action on others, acts in a dominant or submissive manner, forms an alliance with someone against another individual, feels like a member of a group, decides what is good for the group, makes a decision based on morals, follows the dictates of culture, speaks to another individual, or uses a tool.
To give us a more accurate notion of what is a human, these measurements are repeated for countless animals of all types, including other primates, other mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. The measurements are more difficult and indirect for these other animals and so are subject to very careful interpretation. The scientist obtains these measurements after becoming familiar with many individual animals and by knowing which individuals are related by family. Observations of one group of individuals are made for many years, and thousands of interactions between individuals are recorded. It's easy to see that these measurements can go on for much of a scientist's lifetime.
Scientists also measure answers to difficult questions like the following: the portion of persons who don't have enough money to eat properly, have been sick in the last month, changed jobs this month, have a child who died before age ten, have been in jail, live below the poverty line, earn more than four times the average annual income for the country, use more than one-ton of wood per year, finished high-school, are able to read, or have been sick from pollution. They also study the cultural similarities among different groups of peoples who choose to adopt a democratic form of government. In these types of questions, conclusions about cause and effect are the most difficult to make because millions of variables are involved. (We see that physicists have it easy with their systems involving just a few variables, as in the pendulum above.) Many of these measurements concern the economic and social justice of our civilization.
There are many popular misconceptions and complaints about science. For example some complain that the scientist's laboratory is nothing like the "real world." The fact is that scientists observe nature; nobody can get nature to act differently then it wants. That is, nature will act the same out in a forest as it does inside a room–even if the door on that room happens to say "Albert's Lab." For example, if you drop a ball outside then it will fall down. Nature will also have the ball fall down when you drop it inside of a laboratory. You cannot get nature to operate "unnaturally." In the laboratory, scientists often try to arrange a natural setting in which they can isolate single variables in order to study them one at a time.
Another complaint is that scientific research is useless. Sometimes people say "What use can that be?" or "How can you make a machine from that?" The trouble is that no one can guess ahead of time how many machines will result from a particular research project. No one can predict its potential to improve the quality of our lives. For example, for a few centuries people laughed at the scientists who played with the funny little rocks that "magically" pushed and pulled each other. Eventually this was described as electromagnetism and led to many of today's most important machines, such as the electric letter opener. Some people do science just because they want to understand the universe. These scientists simply enjoy understanding and are less concerned about possible profits from future machines. Curiosity is also a human trait. We celebrate our humanity in many ways: by dancing, singing, making art, climbing mountains, creating buildings or organizations, or by being curious.
There is a common misconception that a scientist's "theory" is the same thing as a "wild guess" that has little to do with the real world, and that a theory has to sit alone and wait unused for a long time before someone finds a way to relate it to something in the real world. To a scientist, a theory is an explanation that is consistent with all previous measurements of a phenomenon. It is referred to as "theory" rather than "fact" because it isn't known if it will be consistent with the next measurement that is either more accurate or concerns a slightly different but revealing aspect of the world. (Since religion does not involve measurement, one can not say that Genesis is another “theory” of the origin of the universe and require that it to be taught in a science classroom alongside the “wild guess” of the Big Bang; similarly, science is not taught in a course on religion. Religion teaches us how to behave in life’s situations. The closest science comes to the concern of religion is in its study of what is behavior. Science never tells us how to behave. Since science and religion concern different things, there is no conflict between them.) Sometimes a theory is given in terms of a mathematical equation that produces the same numbers as have been previously measured for a certain phenomenon. Since the theoretical equations are designed to produce the same numbers as had been previously measured it means that the theory has an "application" from the start. The first job of the theory's equation is to match those previously measured numbers. For example in the 1920s, one of the first applications of the newly developed, theoretical equations of quantum mechanics was to give the same numbers as had been measured for the colors of light emitted by a hydrogen atom.
How many scientists are there? The number of scientists per million persons in 1996 was 1900 in the EU, 3800 in the U.S., 4700 in Japan, 500 in Latin America, and 100 in India and Sub-Saharan Africa, as given in http://enreca.pubhealth.ku.dk/1997_Danish_Research.pdf. There is a misconception that all scientists are atheists. (Visit www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html for information about the number of atheists in various nations.)
The more we understand about a phenomenon the more incredible it becomes. Closely studying nature is one way that some scientists worship. In this way, both the scientist and the priest are pursuing the same goal. Each of us has our own interests. Some of us have no interest in nature. Others care only to understand that a particular natural phenomenon is the way it is because "God made it that way." Rather than stopping at an explanation of a phenomenon in terms of being part of "God's creation," some scientists want to understand the tiniest details of every phenomenon in an attempt “to know the mind of God." Rather than only worshiping God, some scientists seek to know His mind.
By the way, I estimate that about one-third of my science friends are very religious in that they perform religious activities regularly. Another one-third have spent years in internal deliberation about the assumptions of their culture as it has come down to them from their grandparent's grandparents and have come to the conclusion that there is no God or that the evidence is not yet sufficient to be able to decide either way (of course these persons have the same moral behavior as does everyone else). The remaining one-third simply do not care to expend much energy thinking about such things.
The topics of scientific study are discussed in only a few paragraphs of our ancient and most precious religious documents. For example, the Bible mentions the planet Venus only a few times. These religious documents explain proper behavior in terms that we could understand many centuries ago–and today, too. They are not encyclopedias of physical and biological knowledge and do not contain blueprints for technical devices. Since there is little science discussed in our scared documents there is little reason for conflict between science and religion. In the end, both have the same goal of understanding a human and the relations among humans. Scientists are not out to disprove our religious documents. They are instead investigating, for example, why humanity is so well matched to the teachings of these documents. Some scientists do not say that the observation of the Big Bang disproves Genesis but that it allows us a glimpse of the details of how God created the universe. Others ask if God created us simply by creating the natural laws of the universe that resulted in the Big Bang. That is, God knew that the Big Band would occur and that a little while later you would occur. There are some scientists who wonder if God is the Big Bang.
Each of the six billion of us share humanness, but each of us has different interests. Scientists show the same range of personalities found within the rest of society. For example, some scientists feel that, compared to the universe, what does the color of shoes matter and that without love, what would the universe matter. The following websites have more information about science, scientists, and research. Meet several scientists at www.askascientist.org/meet-scientist. Visit www.hhmi.org/becoming to see interviews with several scientists each describing scientists and the ingredients for scientific success. You might like to visit the Royal Society at www.royalsoc.ac.uk and the Association for the Advancement of Society at www.aaas.org . Also visit the Research Channel at www.researchchannel.org and the Archaeology Channel at www.archaeologychannel.org.
The two points of this chapter are that "science" means "facts and understandings learned from repeatable measurements" and that today's scientific knowledge is the result of billions of these measurements. Any explanation of nature must be consistent with each of these previously measured facts. Scientists build a more accurate understanding of a phenomenon by first questioning their naive, initial assumptions about that phenomenon and then making measurements and temporary conclusions. This cycle of questioning, measuring, and concluding is continually repeated until a phenomenon is understood and more-permanent conclusions can be made. Conclusions are never permanent because a refinement in our measurement can lead to improved conclusions. Science progresses closer to the complete story by continually refining measurements and conclusions.
In their intellectual pursuits, scientists, artists, and engineers use their imagination to create new understandings, beauty, and machinery–sometimes all at once. In the next chapter we will see how scientists have found that many seemingly different phenomena are merely different aspects of a small number of more-fundamental elements of nature. Does a mathematician invent or discover understandings? That is, does mathematics exist on its own or is it invented by us? What do parents, families, and societies create? These are some of the things we humans do because it is in our nature to do them, as will be described below in Chapters two through eight. What do generals, politicians, priests, farmers, parents, workers, and business persons create? These are some of the activities that humans do within our civilization, as will be further discussed in Chapters nine through twenty-two. You might like to view the streaming video What is Science by Douglas Duncan at the Fermi Lab website http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/Lectures/NatureofScience/Dunca/f001.htm. At http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/Lectures/NatureofScience/Quigg/f001.htm you can view The Nature of Science by Chris Quigg. You might like to visit www.scienceonline.org.
Questions
1. What is science? Who pays for it? Who benefits from it? How many scientists are there? What portion of science is funded by government or business? Do we need science?
2. How much does your country spend on each of science, art, sports, education, health, and the military?
3. What is the difference between science and technology? What has been the role of science in building roads, boats, cars, planes, buildings, cities, electronic gadgets, business procedures, political campaigns, home appliances, and farming techniques?
4. Should science provide understanding, or just practical tools, or both? Should we stop doing science?
5. Is it important for everyone to understand the science behind the machines that we use every day? Is it important for everyone to understand the natural world? What do we need to understand about science before we vote on scientific issues?
6. List some fields of science.
7. Discuss the personality of some movie characters that were scientists.
8. Weigh yourself once every hour for a few days.
9. What is the width of the characters on this page?
10. List some things that would affect how far you could throw an object? How can you measure some of these things?
11. What is the number of things that might affect your health? How can you measure some of these things?
12. How many facts do you think have been measured about each of the following: bees, the human heart, the human body, flowers, iron, water, earthquakes, nuclear radiation, stars, fossil skeletons, primate behavior, human emotions, satisfaction in the workplace, the economy, and ancient Mesopotamia?
13. List some evidence for ESP. How many facts have been measured about ESP? Which is more interesting, ESP or the psychology behind our desire for it to exist?
14. Does a plant hear? When is it happy? How can we measure these things?
15. Toss a coin 100 times. For each toss, try to predict if the coin will land heads or tails. How many times were you right? Count the number of heads and tails and compare the difference in counts to the square root of 100, which is ten.
16. Is scientific understanding important? Is art important? Are sports important? Are material possessions important? Who is to decide if these things are important to a person or to a group of persons?
17. Is astrology a science? Does it involve repeatable measurements?
18. Think of a statement that you were told as a child, whose truth you have taken for granted your entire life. Since the evidence for this statement is nothing but hearsay, what should you research or measure to determine whether this statement is in fact true. For example, many of us have heard the following claims. Cats eat mice, sugar is bad for you, elephants fear mice, feed a fever but starve a flu, baldness comes from your uncle, muscle turns to fat when you're lazy, red headed people have tempers, blonds are dumb, all persons born under the astrological sign of Aries act smukely, the Earth is round, lightning never strikes the same place twice, radiation from plutonium kills people, all politicians are crooks, all poor people are stupid and lazy, scientists are atheists, atheists are immoral, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, we use only 10% of our brain, people act differently during the full Moon, criminals have bad genes, the people on the other side of the Earth are inferior, and animals can't think and don't feel emotions.
19. During each day you hear many statements made by persons who simply claim that the statements are true. List some of them, and describe what you should research or measure in order to determine whether this statement is in fact true.
21. How can you determine if a news story is true? List a sentence from a news report, or from a person you had talked with today, that you knew was true because it was supported by measured facts.
21. One example of science rumor versus science fact is given by the nuclear debate. How can we choose the best source of energy for our civilization? What are the factors in this decision and the relative importance of each factor? What should you measure to determine the best energy source? We have all heard that nuclear energy is "just plain evil" and should never be used. Did you know that a single nuclear-powered, electric generating plant produces about 1,500 megawatts of power, which is enough for one million persons, and that it gets all of this energy from a piece of uranium the size of a basketball? (It seems like science fiction that we could obtain that amount of power from such a small volume material.) Nuclear-powered electrical generating plant emit no smog while coal-fired electrical generating plants emit tons of smog because it burns a tons of coal every year–typically, two trainloads per day. How many persons get sick every year from the smog emitted from coal-fired plants, and how many persons get sick every year from the radiation emitted from nuclear-powered plants? To put the "hand on the other foot," how much smog is released from a nuclear plant and how much radiation is emitted from a coal-fired plant? (Coal, dirt, bricks, and many other materials from the Earth naturally emit radiation.) We often hear that electric cars will be smog-free but this will not be the case if they get their electrical power from our coal-fired generating plants. Did you know that a grain-sized piece of uranium could power your automobile for your entire lifetime without producing the tons of smog that your gasoline-powered car creates during your lifetime? Imagine driving your entire lifetime without having ever gone into a gas station. This indicates that we might be choosing our energy source with our emotions instead of carefully weighing facts. Is the public debate being fought with emotions or facts? Are groups trying to persuade you to their side by evoking your emotions or your mind? The energy debate is important. We need to carefully weigh all of the facts before making our decision because we don't want to make the wrong choice. Could it possibly be true that nuclear plants do less harm to the environment than do coal-fired plants?
22. Statistical conclusions about entire populations can not be obtained from the characteristics of just ten of its members. A conclusion based on those ten persons will have little relevance to the entire population. How many persons have to be considered before percentages become repeatable?
23. Do you dream in color? Do your dreams include smells, tastes, emotions, or social situations? Do other animals dream? Does your dog's dream involve smells? Would a snake’s? Does a spider feel web vibrations in its dreams? Does a bird hear songs in its sleep? How can we measure these things?
24. How does a dog feel as it sings or as it holds its head out of the window of a moving car? Do birds or fish enjoy flying or swimming around in gymnastically-moving groups? Does a mother bear enjoy her children? Does a spider enjoy waiting in its web? Can we measure these feelings?
25. To experience the thrill that scientists feel as they explore the world you might try looking at a drop of water with a microscope–its abundance of living things will surprise you. You might look at the Moon or the rings of Saturn in a telescope. Since we see it most every night, we think we are familiar with the Moon until we see the detail visible in a telescope. You might be thrilled to see three-foot long (one meter) lightning bolts shoot out from a Tesla coil, see www.teslascience.org and www.teslasociety.com.
26. Are triangles, circles, and spheres just "theoretical" shapes? Does anything in nature have the shape of a perfect triangle, circle, or sphere? Have we built anything that has such a shape? Do molecules form these shapes? Does the Earth or the Sun have the shape of a perfect sphere?
27. What is the difference between science and religion?
28. Have you heard the rumor that bees are able to sense your fear? Would this mean that bees feel emotions of their own if they can understand ours?
29. Interview a scientist to find out about his or her life and research.
30. What have been the most important experiments of one of the fields of science?
31. Do either scientists, teachers, priests, politicians, dictators, or business operators ever change our way of life?
32. Is mathematics real in that it exists on its own so that we simply discover new aspects of it or do we instead invent mathematics as the need arises? Do natural phenomena exist on their own? Does either art or understanding exist on its own?
33. How many factors might affect the weather, the economy, our behavior on Tuesday, a nation's decision to convert their political system, global warming, the causes of famine, the causes of poverty, or the brain's operation? Which of these things is well understood? Are radiation, nuclear energy, and genetic engineering well understood?
34. Secretly write a numeral on a sheet of paper and cover it up with a dozen squares. Then remove squares, one by one, in random order while other persons try to guess which number had been written down. (Watch out for foreign, ancient, or backwards and upside-down numerals.)
35. Name a scientific study that is useful and one that is useless. Does everyone agree with you? How can we gauge the "usefulness" of a study?
36. Compare a scientist's and a poet's description of love, roses, gnats, and a sunset. What is the difference in motivation of these two persons? Why do we ponder love, roses, gnats, and the sunset?
37. Can you prove or disprove that bras and wallets do or do not cause breast and prostrate cancer? Do white fence posts, green homes, or trees cause cancer? Has the use of saccharin as a sugar substitute increased the occurrence of cancer? How many persons per one-thousand of us get cancer? Does everyone who smokes cigarettes get cancer? In the ancient past, did we get cancer from our incessant campfire smoke?
38. Place the following items into some categories: hat, horn, blue, rat, running, tag, bat, volcano, cow, dog, Jupiter, algae, Saturn, ape, knee, algae, whale, liver, heart, Asia, Africa, Tuva, Brian, Greg, knife, arrow, Kari, clamp, home, tribe, chiefdom, farmer, teacher, DNA, happiness, smelter, anger, justice, play, eat, hydrogen, carbon, sleep, neon, gazelle, toaster, radio, Islam, x-ray, Hinduism, thunderstorm, computer, Napoleon, shoe, steam engine, chocolate, tire, music, governor, debt, and nothing. A physicist might categorize these items by electrical resistance and mass-density. What sort of categories might a biologist, geologist, psychiatrist, political scientist, politician, pastor, bureaucrat, business person, gatherer-hunter, ancient farmer, or a sociologists use?
39. List some artistic forms that are purely intellectual, others that are purely physical, and some that are both. Which sciences involve physical talent? How is sports different from art?
40. If two people measure the same event will they both obtain identical measurements? While driving a car, if one drops a rock out of the window onto the road, does the rock fall straight down? Would a second rock fall straight down if it is dropped onto the floor of the moving car? Would a person standing on the curb watching the moving car and the dropped rock think either rock fell straight down?
41. Logically deduce answers to the following questions and then go measure the answer to see if you were right. Can you make any conclusions from these measurements, and what should you next measure in order to test these conclusions?
I) How many times per day an individual laughs and jokes, smiles and cries, fights and makes up, feels empathy or sympathy, thinks about reproduction, helps friends and strangers, is proud or shameful, decides if a potential behavior will be right or wrong, considers the impact of an action on others, sticks up for themselves or gives in to another's request, forms an alliance with someone against another individual, feels like a member of a group, decides what is good for the group, makes a decision based on morals, follows the dictates of culture, speaks to another individual, or uses a tool. Repeat these questions and measurements for a chimpanzee.
ii) the portion of the persons in the room or in the region, who like coffee or chocolate, don't have enough money to eat properly, has been sick in the last month, changed jobs this month, has a child who died before age ten, have been in jail, are Catholic or Buddhist, work in agriculture or industry, live below the poverty line, earn more than four times the average annual income for the country, use more than one-ton of wood per year, finished high-school, are able to read, or have been sick from pollution. Is there any relation between a nation's high-school drop out rate, suicide rate, average lifetimes’ income, happiness, marriage and divorce rates, and the average height of its citizens?
iii) What is light? We see the stuff as if it is something real but if we cannot hold it in our hand can it be real? How fast does it move? Why can you see through glass but not wood? What are the differences between water, glass, wood, iron, electricity, and air? What happens to wood when it burns? Where does it go? Is it still wood? What is sound, and how fast does it move? What's the difference between music and noise? What is an echo? When a whistling train or police car passes you, why does the whistle's tone change from high to low? How do you hear, see, smell, taste, and feel? Why do different things smell, taste, sound, appear, and feel different? Why is it so hard to force a ball to stay completely under water? Why do balloons float? When you spin a glass of water why does the center of the water move downward and its edges upward? How does a lever work? When you drive your car and turn a corner, why does all that stuff slide toward the side of the dash? How did that stuff know you had turned around the corner? What is the difference between ice, water, and steam? When you stretch a ruberband and release it, what makes it snap back? Why doesn't a bent wire snap back into place? If you bend a wire back and forth it gets hot and breaks. Why? How does a magnet attract things? What is gravity? Does it pull in one direction or does it pull sideways, too? Is gravity the same thing as magnetism? How are mountains formed? Why does the Moon go around the Earth? Why don't we fall off the Earth? Why doesn't the Earth's atmosphere leak off into space? How big is the Earth? Where do clouds and the Sun go at night? Where do the stars go during the day? What are stars? Where has the Moon gone when we can't see it? Why does the Moon's shape change from night to night? Why are the Sun and Moon larger while they are rising and sitting? Do the Moon, Sun, clouds, and stars follow you as you walk down the street? Where does the sky end? Is it taller than it is wide? What is electricity? How is it different from magnetism and gravity? How does a gun make a bullet move? How do binoculars make things appear to be larger? Why does a pencil appear to bend when you put it into a glass of water? Is it bent? When you spill water on your shirt why does the shirt then appear darker? If the "darkness" is in the water, then why isn't a glass of water dark? When you slam on the brakes why do you fly forwards? Why doesn't the dust blow off your car when you drive down the highway at twice the posted speed limit? Why doesn't the dust blow off your home cooling fan? (Those things are always full of dust.) How does a drinking straw work? What in the world is a fire flame, and why does it rise? Why is the sky blue, and why does it turn red at sunset? What is lightning? What is thunder? Does one cause the other? What causes tornadoes and hurricanes? Why do the ice skaters spin faster when they pull their arms inward? What is heat and just how is it different from cold? What are the coldest and hottest temperatures that exist? Does hot flow toward cold or does cold flow toward hot? How does heat get into things? How does a coat keep you warm? How does sweating cool you off? When you place clothes in the dryer, where does the water go? When water boils, where do the bubbles come from? What is a cloud? Why are some clouds bright while others are dark? While driving, why does that little patch of winter ice always form in the car window? How does the glass of ice-water get wet on the outside? What keeps a car window from frosting over when you park under a carport? How do geysers like "Old-Faithful" work? (Visit www.nps.gov/yell/oldfaithfulcam.htm for a webcam view.) When you hold a spoon in the stream of a water faucet, sheets of water shoot out. What does this have to do with Space Shuttle engines? What is the difference between green and blue? The hairs of a paintbrush spread out when placed underwater but cling together when taken out of the water. Why? What is a rainbow? Why do camera lenses appear blue? Why does the doorknob sometimes give you that electric shock? What determines the color of an object? What are the Moon and the Sun? What are those funny little points of light in the nighttime sky? Why does a mirror reverse right and left but not up and down? Jearl Walker gives hundreds of examples of physics in everyday phenomena in The Flying circus of Physics. For example, hot water running into the sink doesn't splash as much as cold water, and it sounds different. Why? Water falling out of a slightly-on faucet narrows as it falls? Why?
42. Create a piece of art that explains how you feel about science.
43. Which other animals have a capacity for memory, learning, and reasoning? How can we measure these feelings?
Suggestions for further reading
Watchers of the Stars, Patrick Moore, 1973, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York.
The Demon Haunted World Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan, 1996, Ballantine Books, New York.
The Skeptical Enquirer. The articles in this magazine contain descriptions of attempts by scientists to verify unusual claims.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn, third edition 1996, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
The Scientific Revolution, Steven Shapin, 1996, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Why We Love: the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, Helen Fisher, 2004, Henry Holt & Company, Ltd., New York, NY.
The Philosophy of Science, Peter Caws, 1965, D. Van Nostrand Co Inc, Princeton NJ.
For a discussion of the relationship between pure science and technology, see: To Light Such a Candle, Keith J. Adler, 1997, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
The Matter Myth by Paul Davies and John Gribbin, 1992, Simon & Schuster, New York, ISBN 067172840-7 or -5 for hbk or ppbk, discusses theory and reality.
Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic–More Notes of a Fringe Watcher, Martin Gardner, 1996, Prometheus Books. In this book Gardner debunks pseudoscience.
In the first section of this book, Feynman describes the scientific method in The Meaning of it all, Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist, Richard Feynman, 1998, Addison Wesley, Reading MA.
Science For All Americans, F. James Rutherford & Andrew Ahlgren, 1990, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York. This is a report about the need for increased science education in our schools.
The Educated Child, William J. Bennett, Chester E. Jr. Finn, John T.E. Jr, Cribb, 2000, Simon & Schuster, New York, New York.
Science, Steve Fuller, 1997, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.
The Scientific Revolution, Steven Shapin, 1996,The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Il.
Science and Human Values, J. Bronowski, 1956, Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, NY.
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