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Man,
I was thinking about taking a college course this semester, but I don't know what
to take.
[Offscreen]
Hey, there's this Physical Science telecourse that's really cool. Yeah You kinda
work hard, but it's really interesting, and you really learn a lot of interesting
stuff.
Yeah,
like a bunch of equations and formulas and a bunch of facts, right?
[Offscreen]
No.
! This
course is different. You gotta think and write stuff, but you don't have to memorize
a lot of things. You learn the reasons behind the science and not just the facts.
I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain. Why don't you watch a couple of programs
and see what you think.
Say,
how do you know all this stuff about this telecourse, anyway? Hey, where'd you go?
Music
Before
we're done with this program we will have been introduced to the course, and we will
have learned about the telecourse and how we will approach the study of physical
science: Like a river-rafting trip as we follow a cultural heritage of ideas, beliefs
and preferences. We'll look at the course structure, its topics, its goals and objectives.
What you will have to do as a student, the text and references, and other general
information about the course.
Be
sure to read these objectives in the Study Guide and refer to them as you study the
lesson. Focusing on the learning objectives will help you study and understand the
important concepts. Compare the objectives with the study questions for this lesson
to be sure that you have the concepts under control.
[In
Kayak] Hi, I'm Richard Brill, Professor of Science at Honolulu Community College.
I'll be your instructor and your host for 30 programs of the Nature of Physical Science,
a telecourse that encourages you to get physical with your science. I hope you're
ready for an exciting semester.
Oh,
hey, come on, science isn't just a bunch of old facts and principles. Science is
a living, dynamic cultural activity with a rich history, complete with geniuses,
grumpy old men, false starts, bad ideas, lucky guesses, fortuitous accidents and
religious persecutions. Yet the principles and facts are there, and they're important.
But what good are they without connections, without the stories and personalities
behind them?
So,
you want to explore them with me? Yeah, really, it's all there, and it's exciting.
Well, come on, we've got a river to follow.
[In
classroom] Well, you know, the classroom's empty now, but during class it's bright,
full of discussion and comments. We'd like to recreate that environment on your TV
screen, but we're not that interactive yet. What we can do is sometimes bring you
into the classroom by showing you some stuff that we filmed here earlier. he interactivity
for the class will be electronic. But that's the point of the classroom without walls.
You don't have to come here, we can communicate remotely over telephone or cable
lines, and you can communicate with your classmates. If you're enrolled in the course
you're welcome to attend classes right here on campus. If you'd like to come to class
on a particular night for a particular topic, get in touch with me and I'll send
you instructions where and when and how to get here. I'm sorry, but I can only allow
enrolled students in the classroom, but you are welcome to enroll and get credits.
Well, speaking of credits. You know, earning credits in a college course requires
work. It's one thing to watch the TV and get the information that goes with the course,
but it's something else to study the material, make the connections and do the synthesis.
That's the difference between earning credit and just watching. You're welcome in
either capacity, but just don't get them confused.
[In
studio] Now, it's all too common to get knowledge confused with facts. Facts are
what's available in references and textbooks. But knowledge goes a little deeper.
Knowledge involves understanding the facts in context, knowing how the facts were
obtained and being able to draw conclusions from the facts in newer information situations.
The
word I'm talking about here is synthesis. The dictionary says that synthesis is a
combination of parts or elements, material substances or objects of thought into
a complex whole. This is opposed to the idea of analysis, which is to separate the
whole into parts. See how it works? Synthesis is you take a whole bunch of different
ideas and put them into one thing. Analysis is you take something that exists and
break it into its parts. We'll be doing both of these as we progress through the
course.
You
will be expected in this course to both synthesize and analyze, from reading, from
television, outside sources, from your experiments and observations. You'll have
to think critically and write clearly. There will be some questions in the Study
Guide which will not be addressed in the video, and there will also be questions
posed in the video which will not be in the text or Study Guide. The purpose of using
the multi-media of the telecourse is there will be total integration, but not total
repetition amongst the video, hypertext, and text. Your job as a student is to reach
an acceptable level of comprehension.
Our
job is to make the material available to you and guide you through it. It's a nice
working arrangement and works really well, if we all do our jobs. You will be asked
to write brief expositions, essays and a research paper, which will demonstrate how
well you've analyzed, integrated and synthesized concepts and ideas. Each program
will pose questions. In fact, in each program there will be many questions posed.
Some of these will be in the video, some will be in the text, some will be in the
Study Guides. Some of these will be numerical problems, but no particular question
is mandatory, except exam questions, and we'll cover that later.
(8:45)
You may
choose to write an answer to one of more of these questions and submit it for your
response to each program (we'll have more information about those program responses
later). Whether or
not you decide to send in our answer to a question, or just write out an answer,
the more writing you do the more you will learn. Writing is the best way to synthesize
information from various sources. A good way to synthesize for a program response
is to summarize the program in your own words.
You
may answer as many or as few of these questions as you like. But the minimum is one
per program. Submission will be graded on the basis of 12 points per page, double
spaced, one inch margins, about 250 words per page. Or if you prefer to think of
it in a different way, it's the total points for an assignment that will be about
.048 points per words times the number of words times the grade. If that doesn't
make sense, we can talk. The total for these will count one fourth of
your grade for the course.
We'll
cover this in more detail later in the program when we get to the section on grading.
I just wanted to let, give you the idea of synthesis here in the beginning. There
are different approaches to mastering studying material of any kind. And if you're
interested for this course, you can take a learning temperament profile test, which
might help you to identify which approach to take. You need to contact us to make
arrangements for this test, and we'll get this test instrument to you., if you're
interested in taking this test. This is not a graded test, it's just a test that
might help you to understand how you can study better for the course.
OK
So, what is physical science? Physical science, if you look it up in the dictionary,
it says, it's the "study of matter and energy and their interactions."
Well, this is nice. Matter, energy and interactions! Well, we don't know what matter
is. We don't know what energy is, so it's hard for us to really define at this point
what we mean by matter, energy and interactions. But we will be learning this throughout
the course. Maybe can get the sense of this. If fact, if you look up a definition
of physics or chemistry in the dictionary, they'll tell you that it's an interaction
of matter and energy and interactions. But certainly, physics is not the same thing
as chemistry. Physics is the study of motion and forces. Chemistry is the study of
chemical reactions. One of the interesting things that we'll come to in studying
this course is to see how these two apparently very different things, physics and
chemistry, are actually linked by the same sorts of ideas and by the same beliefs
and by the same paradox.
OK.
So, now let's take a look at an overview of the course and the kinds of things we'll
focus on. We will go into more detail later including a more, a listing of, and more
detailed descriptions of individual course topics. But, here's the kind of things
we want to cover. The title of this course is "The Nature of Physical Science."
So, we'll concentrate a little bit on this program on the idea of the nature of science.
I'm sorry, the physical portion. The next time we'll go into the idea of the nature
of science. Here's the kind of things we want to cover in this course. What is a
scientific study? How does a scientific study differ from other kinds of studies?
If someone tells you that they've done a scientific study, what do you look for to
know that the study was really scientific? How do you know that it's scientific?
OK.
Another thing. How have views of the universe changed throughout the history of mankind.
Do we still believe the same kinds of things that our ancient ancestors believed,
or are there new ideas that we have? We'll see as we go through the course that many
of the ideas we have today were actually studied or conceived of as far back as ancient
Greece, 600 BC But then again, I don't want to get too far ahead of things.
Another
thing. Why do we believe what we believe about the world, just because we see things?
Oh, we can't see, for example, the outer planets. But we know they're there. We believe
that they're there. Many things happen that we can't see. We can't see atoms, but
we believe in them. Why do we believe in atoms? Up until 20 years ago, no one had
ever seen an atom. And still today, we only see them as pictures computer enhanced
from a tunneling electron microscope. So, we don't see atoms, but yet, our entire
culture, scientifically anyway today, is based on an atomic theory.
Another
thing. What methods have been developed over the years to visualize patterns, order
and relationships? I mean we see patterns all the time. We look up and we know the
sun rises in the east and sets in the west. But those are simple patterns. Those
were recognized by our very ancient ancestors. In the modern world we have all kinds
of patterns. How, for example, would we be able to know if a child watching television
causes violence? Is there a connection here? Is there a pattern between certain kinds
of television shows? How would we find out? What sorts of methods do we have to do
this?
OK
Another one. If we collect enough facts and we understand everything, in other words,
is the universe understandable, or will there always be some things that we don't
know? Our experience in science has been that the more we learn, the less we know.
That for every question we answer, we find new and more questions. Is this the nature
of science? Or, will be some day reach a point where we know everything? Sort of
like on Star Trek? Where everything has an answer already?
OK.
And finally in this is the question of what kinds of things can we study scientifically?
Can we study love? Can we study the existence of God? Can we study when life begins?
All of these questions are questions of our times that people try to study scientifically.
Can we do it? We don't know. We'll get into that as well. So, what this course really
is, is a natural history of physical science, from its beginnings to its development
to its growth. We'll look at contributors. We'll look at time lines. We'll look at
interrelationships. We'll look at cultural factors, and we'll look at personalities.
OK.
We'll do this from the beginning of man through the 21st century. Whew! That's a
tall order, isn't it? Well, actually, we'll end out study in the mid 20th century
because we won't really get into things that, you know, really modern physics, but
we should have enough tools that will help you, the student, get into the 21st century.
OK,
we'll also learn the significance and appreciate the influence of the classical Greeks
under geometry. One of the most important contributions made by any one of the study
of physical science was the development of geometry with its logical steps and formal
structure. But don't panic. You're not going to have to do geometry. But we have
to understand the importance and the significance of geometry. With the Greek's analysis
of properties of shapes and lines, they laid the groundwork for modern mathematical
descriptions of nature and their interpretations, and I think you'll see by the time
we get a few programs in the course, that we could not do any of this without mathematics.
Oh.., that's another scary word, isn't it? MATHEMATICS! Don't be scared. You won't
have to do the math particularly, but we certainly are going to learn the importance
of the math.
OK.
We also want to trace the fate of learning and knowledge during the Dark Ages in
Europe, and the rise of the Islamic world after the fall of Rome. You probably already
know this, but learning virtually disappeared in Europe for nearly a thousand years
following the fall of Rome. The Roman Empire had held together rather artificially
the, all of Europe, politically, linguistically, economically, and so forth. During
the Dark Ages in Europe, other civilizations thrived, and contributed much including
the new star charts and mathematics and so forth. Not only by preserving the ancient
documents, which they did, but also, by providing important new original contributions.
OK.
Finally, we'll learn of the development of modern scientific beliefs about the physical
universe in their historical context. Our modern beliefs about physical laws come
from a long heritage which is intimately and immediately interlocked with other historical
events.
Now,
history is a complex tangle of events which we can never hope to completely reconstruct
in all of its detail. The same is true for the history of science. We don't know
every little detail. We don't know every thought that went through Einstein's head
or Newton's head. But we can certainly piece them together. We can pick up the major
events and try to place them in historical context. Things like Lavoisier's death
at the hands of French Revolutionaries at the height of his scientific career, or
Galileo's exile for his blasphemous assertions and brash criticisms of the Church's
policies. All of these things put science not just in a science context, but in a
social context. We can't separate science from the social context in which the people
lived.
OK.
Let's turn our attention now to the Course Syllabus. In the Syllabus I want to give
you a fairly good description of what the course entails, the details and mechanics
of the course. Science 122 is a four semester-hour transferable, college-level course
in general science, designed for liberal arts and education majors. It fulfills a
general education requirement in the natural science laboratory area in the University
of Hawaii system. Although it is not a required course, it may be useful as a general
introduction to more advanced study in the sciences. No previous study of college
level science is required, but we will assume that you know, or at least are willing
to learn, certain high school level concepts. But, curiosity, good observations,
and an open mind will certainly be useful attributes. You'll need a minimum of probably
mathematics equivalent to pre-algebra. The use of a calculator or spreadsheet is
required, mostly for the labs. Exercises in the lab will allow you to learn the use
of a spreadsheet for doing calculations, if you don't already know how to do so.
OK.
So, the title of the course is "The Nature of Physical Science." In this
program we'll consider the goals and objectives of the course and concentrate on
the nature part of that title. Next program we'll turn our attention to the physical
science part. So, why do you think we called this course, "The Nature of Physical
Science?" In fact, what's the difference between the nature of physical science
and the physical science of nature? Think about that one for a minute.
OK.
Science 122, the way we do it here, is not your typical physical science course.
Typically, a physical science course would begin with the study of motion, with lots
of equations and exercises to calculate, like, the distance a stone falls in a certain
amount of time when you drop it off the bridge, and that sort of thing. That's not
us. We'll certainly see that these relationships exist and we will study them as
we progress through the course, but not as the main thrust of the course. In fact,
we'll be much more interested in the ideas and ideals of science, more than we're
interested in the facts. I'll try to elaborate on that some more as we progress with
today's program. Don't get me wrong. The facts are important, but they're not the
most important thing. We will often take the time to explain how things work and
why things work, but we'll do this only to emphasize the larger picture of science
as a human activity.
OK.
Let's now turn our attention to, get a little overview of some of the course topics,
some of the things that we will be studying throughout the course.
One
of the things that's important that we tend to take for granted in science is the
role of perception. Perception is using our senses. I don't want to get too far ahead
of this, but perception is very important. For example, how do we know what we see?
When you look at something, when you look at the sun rising, when you look at your
friend sitting next to you, how do you know what you see? You say, "Well I see
it, it's in my eyes." What are your eyes? You eyes are nothing more than collectors
for light, and those impulses somehow are transmitted into electrical signals into
nerve signals where they go to your brain and they're processed. In Program three
we'll take a closer look at this idea of processing. But it's something that we cannot
overlook as far as the study of science goes. All is not really what we see.
The
second thing is the movement in the heavens.
Now, most of us know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
We probably know that the moon goes through phases, but most of us in our modern
world don't know much more than that. It's, I think it goes without saying that our
early ancestors were much more in tune with this sort of thing than we are. Though,
we will take some time to learn how the movements actually take place in the heavens.
What kind of things we see there, and try to put it in perspective of the way our
ancient ancestors might have seen it ten thousand years ago. This is not easy to
do, but we'll try to do this.
But
we also want to study some of the underlying assumptions of science. Now there are
certain things we take for granted in science. You may not think of this. You may
think, you know, faith is reserved for the religious aspect of our lives, but there
are lot of things we take for granted and take on faith than science. I don't want
to go into what those are right now, because we're getting to far ahead of things,
but there are certain things we have to take for granted. One of those things, a
very important one, is that the laws which we determine to be true here on earth
are the same laws that are true in other parts of the universe. In other words, if
we drop something on the moon, gravity will still affect it. And if you were to light
a fire in an oxygen environment, it will still burn your hand. Right? So these laws
we assume to be the same. I think if that doesn't set with you right now, we in the
future, half way through the course, or so, I think will be able to justify that
a little bit better.
OK.
The other thing now is historical relationships and cultural heritage. I mentioned
this a little bit earlier, but we do want to think of science as a cultural heritage.
It's a cultural heritage mostly inherited from the West. It's a cultural heritage
which has a lot of influence from the East and from the Mideast, but it's basically
a Greek heritage. We don't really have any good reason for this, except that historically
this is the way it happened. That most of our ideas come from that lineage--from
the Greeks. But we will be able to trace this thread all the way back from early
Mesopotamian, early middle Eastern history, all the way up through the Middle Ages
into modern science.
OK.
We'll also concentrate on mathematical and geometric tools. I mentioned this earlier
as well. We can't overstate the importance of mathematics. Oh, there's that word
again. Every time I say that I can hear like, people going, "Oh, my God, mathematics."
But, again, you don't have to do a lot of math, but we certainly have to understand
the importance of math. And we're not so much concentrating on numbers in math, but
simply operations and relationships. The key word here is really, relationships.
Much of the time when you do math, it's you know, you get some numbers and you do
something and you wind up with an answer which is either right or wrong. That's not
us, either. What we're interested in is relationships between things we can measure.
This is what science is really about.
OK.
The next thing we will get into is the idea of movement here on earth, or motion.
Now we think we know what motion is .I mean, we look outside and we can tell if the
wind's blowing and tell if a car is moving or standing still. We can tell if we're
moving. We can see motion. But seeing is not believing. Seeing is not everything.
And in order to understand motion, we first need to define it. We need to define
the variables in which we measure it. We need to figure out ways to characterize
motion in terms of distance and time, and various other things. Well, we'll spend
some time doing that. In fact, I'll tell you ahead of time, it was our understanding
of motion that really was the key that opened the door to the scientific revolution
by studies done by Galileo in the 1700s.
OK.
We'll use our study of motion to understand how Isaac Newton discovered the theory
of gravity. Now we take gravity so much for granted, and obviously, when you drop
something it falls to the ground, and you may not know this, but this was true even
before Isaac Newton. Even before Newton's time, gravity still caused things to fall
to the ground. It's just that the description of gravity which Newton came up with
which linked together the idea of motion here on earth and the legend of the falling
apple with the motion of the planets, in the orbits of the planets, is the big idea
here. Newton discovered that you can describe motion on earth, motion of the planets,
in the same terms. Newton also linked together the concept of forces in motion, and
we'll come back and look at all that later on as well. Following Newton's synthesis
of gravity scientists, physical scientists, launched into a concerted effort to understand
the world in Newtonian terms, in the terms laid down by Newton. Much of what came
out of this concentrated on the concepts of energy and work. These are words that
we know all too well. In fact, most of us, sometimes, don't have enough energy to
go to work.
OK,
sorry. But the concepts of energy and work are central to the idea of physics and
it turns out that they also apply in areas other than physics, especially in chemistry,
but also into the other physical sciences.
OK.
That will lead us into the concepts of heat and temperature. Heat and temperature
are very important. I mean, we can spend a lot of time, just, you know, characterizing
about heat and about temperature. We could talk about what heat is and identify and
define various temperature scales. We'll do some of that. But what we really want
to get to is the fact that heat and the motion of molecules is the link between physics
and chemistry. I know, some people, with the word chemistry, also, "Oh, chemistry,
Oh, man," and you start panic and everything. Yeah, we'll study some chemistry,
but it won't be what you're used to as chemistry. And we'll be looking at chemistry
mostly in a historical context and understanding the properties of matter.
We'll
also then get into trying to understand the difference between alchemy and chemistry.
And in many ways the distinction between alchemy and chemistry is very much like
the distinction between a geocentric and a heliocentric model of the universe. Oh,
did I use those words you don't know yet? Geocentric means there's a center and the
sun goes around it with all the planets.
Heliocentric
means the sun's at the center and the earth goes around it with all the planets.
You should know the difference for that and I suggest, if you haven't heard
those terms before, this is a good time to stop and look them up. Geocentric and
heliocentric. But, what we'll see here with alchemy versus chemistry is that when
chemistry began to come into its own as a modern science, it was because people took
a different approach to understanding the properties of matter. The alchemists, up
until about the 17th century, people believed that there was magic in substances,
and that all we had to do was say the right incantations and mix the substances together
in the right way and substances would perform for us. They would do magic. This is
where the idea of changing lead into gold and finding the elixir of life and immortality,
all this kinds of things, came from. The idea that you should be able to take a piece
of lead and change it into gold is a very, very appealing one. It's not surprising
that people spent thousands of years in attempts to do this sort of thing.
OK.
Then we'll launch into a brief understanding of the nature of, the properties of
matter--this chemical and physical properties. From there we'll build our way into
atomic theory and then we'll put everything back together. By putting it back together,
I mean, after we've come from the perspective of chemistry, to understand the existence
of atoms. Then we'll go back and look at those atoms as Newtonian particles. By that
I mean, particles that are in motion. And here we'll put physics, chemistry, the
studies of heat, the atomic theory all together. After we've done that, we'll look
at the chemical properties in atomic structure and some stuff about chemical bonding,
and finally we'll wind up in the final program with a program on entropy, order and
chaos. By this time, I think this program will be pretty interesting. This is pretty
interesting stuff, and it's sort of the question of our times, the connection between
entropy, and order and disorder and chaos and that sort of thing.
OK.
Now, I'd like to spend some time on the idea of themes of the course. There are several
themes which run through the course. You might find it useful to look for them. I'll
give brief definitions here, but we'll run into these themes time and time again
throughout the course and I think if you pay attention to them it will give you sort
of a unified way of looking at the material. We'll define each of these in different
context, in more than one occasion as we go through the course.
OK.
The first thing here is parsimony. Parsimony means stinginess or frugality. By the
way, you're allowed to look up any of these words in the dictionary at any time.
The dictionary is not mandatory, but I think you'll find it helps. In science, the
word, parsimony means that we have a preference for simplicity over complexity. We
look for the simplest answers possible .In fact, if two explanations provide equally
good explanations, we tend to want to choose the simplest one.
OK.
Another theme is the idea of paradigms. We will spend the entire program, in Program
three, looking at the concept of paradigms, and how they relate to perception and
so forth. A paradigm at this point we can think of simply as a model for thinking,
or for classifying experiences. It helps us to assimilate information that we obtain
about the world. The third thing is the idea of unity and universality.
I
mentioned this a few minutes ago, that we tend to prefer to think that the laws are
the same in different parts of the universe, and that they apply the same to all
objects. Otherwise, the laws are too specific. We don't want to have one set of laws
that says how a rock falls and another set of laws that says how a piece of metal
falls, if we can determine that those two things behave according to the same laws.
Now,
we will admit to the fact that substances have different properties that may vary
from one substance to the other. But, all substances follow the same physical laws
which allow for consistency when these physical properties are taken into account.
The concepts will become clearer again as we get along in the course.
OK.
The fourth thing--numerical relationships. This theme is one that will run very deep
through the course. We'll begin to develop this, somewhere around Program Five or
Six. Think about this. The fact that the universe follows mathematical laws is awesome.
If you stop to think about it, why should it be that way? Does order require the
existence of numerical relationships between measurable quantities? Things like force
and mass? Or is it just a coincidence that these relationships exist in a logical
format? Where mathematics can be developed to describe them? Understand what I'm
saying? The fact that the sun moves in a regular way, that there are 24hours in a
day, that's a mathematical thing. There's relationship between the rate at which
the earth turns and the thing we call time.
Now
it's not really a question for science to consider, the question whether this is
a coincidence or not. It is something we'd like to have in the back of our minds
as we go through the material. Even though it's not a question that science can consider,
it's the kind of question which has influenced science throughout history. As we
and our ancestors have tried to figure out what kinds of things can be studied, what
kinds of things cannot, and what kinds of patterns have meaning, and what kinds of
patterns don't? Again, don't panic here. Force is not mathematical. You don't have
to be mathematically trained.
We
will use equations to show relationships and to show how mathematics can be used
logically to derive hidden relationships. This you should be able to follow with
only basic math. You don't have to solve equations. You don't have to do a lot of
manipulation. But you do need to know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
You should know what a square root is, and what a power is. As an X squared or X
to the fourth power. You will have during the course the option of solving numerical
problems from the text, and you will be required to do some low level quantitative
calculations for most of the laboratory exercises, but you'll be given the formulas
and everything, so you don't have to memorize those kinds of things.
OK.
The next theme is the idea of change and the rate of change. The concept of change
is something we take for granted. In fact, some of the ancient Greek philosophers
consider that change was the only thing real in the universe. We know that change
is constantly taking place. So did our ancestors. It's not change that's unusual,
what's unusual about our modern scientific view is the way in which we describe change.
If change occurs in any kind of a regular way, then there's a mathematical relationship
involved. Yeah, regularity, mathematical relationship. The mathematics which has
been developed since the time of Galileo has been concerned in one way of the other
with describing how things change in relation to one another.
A
simple example, of course, goes back to motion. That when something is moving 60
miles per hour, then its distance changes 60 miles for every hour that it's moving.
There's a relationship there. One of the important differences in our modern approach
to science is that early mathematicians thought that change could not be described
mathematically. Change could not be described mathematically, even if it was possible
to predict certain outcomes, like the locations of the stars and the sun and the
moon and other things in the sky. This is a subtle distinction, and it's one that
we'll pick up on again as we move through the course.
OK.
Two more things, two more themes here. One of them has to do with the role of genius,
personality and culture. It's important for us to remember that science, regardless
of what it is, is still done by humans. That means that the humans who do the science
have all the strengths and weaknesses and all the follies of the species. The interplay
between genius, personality and culture has a strong role in the direction that our
science takes. Many times the persecution of a particular genius has led o either
accepting or not accepting that person's ideas.
OK.
Finally, the last thing. This goes back to the idea of the cultural heritage of science.
This is our final theme.
Our
modern scientific ideas have roots in the earliest ideas of man. We can trace a more
or less continuous path with only a few small gaps from those primitive ideas based
on the supernatural to our modern science of high-energy particle accelerators and
super telescopes. Hopefully, our science will appear equally primitive to our descendants
in the next millennia.
OK.
So that's our series of themes and if you pay attention to those themes, and keep
these in mind as we go though the material, I think you'll see these recurring and
cropping up time after time.
OK
Let's go on and look at the structure of the course a little bit. There are four
sections to the course. Each section contains seven or eight lessons. And each lesson
corresponds to a video program and also to a lesson in the Study Guide. Lessons are
numbered within each section. So, for example, this is Program One, Lesson 1.1.The
first program in Section two will be Program 9,which will be Lesson 2.1, and so on.
Be sure you understand the meaning of these numbers. Look in the Study Guide. You'll
see an outline of the structure of the topics. If you have any questions about the
numbering, et in touch with the instructor right away.
OK.
In Section One, we call Beginnings. In this first section we examine the process
and progress of physical science from its beginnings in ancient astronomy through
Copernicus's publication of the first heliocentric model which spurred the scientific
revolution. This discovery that the earth is not the center of the universe is one
of the most significant and most difficult discoveries made by the human mind. Studying
the processes by which we came to this knowledge will give us much greater insight
into the workings of the mind and also into the nature of reality. It will involve
Greek philosophy, the authority of Aristotle, the decay of knowledge in the Middle
Ages, to development of the church as a political force, and the rise of the church
as an authority in the Middle Ages. This approach will give us an insight into the
relationship between science, society in which it exists, and the minds of those
who create and modify it.
Section
Two. Section Two we call Revolution. In the Second Section we study the scientific
revolution from Kepler to Newton, a relatively short period of time in history, a
little over a hundred years. Our emphasis in this Second Section is on the gradual
transition from myth to fact, regarding the motions of the heavens, and motion here
on earth. Galileo thoughts, observations and experiments laid the groundwork for
Newton's laws of motion and set the stage for his mathematical description of gravity
and gravitation. That's Section Two.
Section
Three we call the Newtonian Universe. This Section we look carefully at Newton's
law sand their impact on subsequent thought which we often called the Newton Paradigm.
Newton's work emphasizes and exemplifies a combination of clear scientific reasoning,
use of mathematics and the creativity of individual genius. Newton was one of the
greatest geniuses of all times. The Newtonian view of forces, motion and gravity
made sense out of the heliocentric world view, and at the same time provided a framework
for the development of concepts of energy and conservation and understanding the
nature of heat.
In
fact, it is the basis for all of our modern science. In one publication Newton essentially
wrote a textbook of physics which hasn't really changed very much in the past 300
years.
OK.
The Fourth Section deals with the Development of Atomic Theory. Here we'll go back
to the beginning, the early times and trace the development of man's knowledge and
understanding of the chemical processes and properties of matter. Beginning with
fire through the quantum atomic model. We'll see how it was ultimately Newton's physics
which gave direction to the quest for fire. The oldest and least understood of the
ancient technologies .Its understanding required us to meld together Newtonian physics
with atomic theory to understand combustion and heat. This is astronomy and physics
were combined to yield Newton's laws, we'll see how the interaction of physics and
chemistry combined to finally be able to describe and understand heat. And in the
final program we'll touch upon thermodynamics, the dynamics of heat. The concepts
of entropy and chaos with implications for the future will be our final topic.
OK.
The video programs are designed to focus on the main ideas of the course, and to
guide you through the material. We cannot and we should not, simply tell you what
you need to know. Remember, effective learning is active, and you must synthesize.
The
Study Guide is the course organizer. The Study Guide contains questions. It contains
outlines of the topics. It contains generally the organization for the course. The
Study Guide is keyed to the TV programs, lesson by lesson. You'll find the Study
Guide again corresponding to each individual lesson. In many of the lessons, it also
contains supplementary textual information where the textbooks for the course have,
where I thought were not quite up to par.
(48:33)
It also contains study questions and
objectives. Of course there are many more questions than you might be expected to
write answers for, but you should know the answers to them, or at least be able to
find the answers in the program or on the web.
To be sure you have a good understanding of the material you should look at
the objectives as well as the questions. These may not be the exact exam questions,
but if you can answer them you should
be in good shape for the exam, since the exam questions will be based on these questions
and objectives.It
also contains the exam questions. Yes, the actual exam questions. Of course, there
are many more questions than you'll be asked to answer, and I'm the one who picks
the questions, so you pretty much have to cover all of them, if you want to get a
good understanding. But those questions are there in the Study Sections in the Exam
Question Section. It also contain a Syllabus and a copy of the Course Schedule. It
also has a section on Appendix which contains additional references that you might
want to use for outside research and so on.
OK.
As far as the texts for the course go. There are several forms of textual material
available. The texts will provide the main information for the course. They should
be read, reread, and studied. In the text you'll find all sorts of things--background
information, drawings and illustrations, graphs and tables, various focuses and boxes
on special problems or personalities and things like that. The texts are designed
to fill in some of the details and to guide your learning. Check the Syllabus to
find which text is being used for the course in the term that you're enrolled. The
text should be available from the campus Bookstore, so you can check with them for
information. You will find that you have to spend some time with the textbooks. Don't
expect to read them like a newspaper. Read slowly and reread a paragraph until you
understand it. Refer to tables, graphs and illustrations. Read the figure captions.
You might find it useful to skim through a chapter, looking at the pictures first.
Look
at the end of the chapter for questions and at the Summaries. Read through the questions.
Learn to use the Table of Contents, the Index and the Glossary. Not all texts will
have all of these sections, but if they are included, they're useful for locating
information. Part of the goal for all college courses is for each student to learn
to search for relevant information and to synthesize from two or more sources. You
may find that different books give a slightly different explanation. One book may
contain material not found in another. Sometimes two books will disagree on a topic.
Comparing and contrasting the information from different sources is part of the concept
of synthesis.
OK.
There's also e-mail communications. You will receive questions, comments and suggestions
throughout the course from the instructor. Some of them will originate with the instructor,
with me. Others may come from students or even viewers of the program. So, don't
hesitate to send us your questions and comments, whether or not you're enrolled in
the course.
OK.I
should also mention that course information is available in slightly different format
on the World Wide Web. You will need a Web browser and access to the internet to
see this material. If you're online, check it out. URLs for this should be on your
screen. You also might want to check the physical science references in the Q section
of the Library.
(51:18)
One final note about the study guide:
It is found on the worldwide web. There is a text-only version available if you find
it takes too long to download the page. The online study guide contains a lot of
pages, but this is where you find the supplementary information, the organization
and various things. The Study Guide should be your main way of studying for the course.
I think you will find that this is sort of the anchor for everything else, that will
allow you to tie everything else together.
OK.
You also are required to do lab exercises. Now, some of you are probably wondering
how you're going to do these lab exercises over television.
Well,
I wish we had an interactive television so that I could set up the experiments and
you could do them, but we've got an even better way to do this. You do them at home.
You can do them either indoors or outdoors. Most of the items that you need you should
have access to at home, although you may have to buy a couple of things.
(52:04)
For example, you need a calculator
and a stop watch, the digital kind. Most digital watches have this feature and you
should be able to buy one for a few dollars. Consider this to be a part of the cost
of the course.
For
example, you need a calculator and a stop watch, a thermometer which reads in Celsius
is also nice, but you can use a Fahrenheit thermometer, but you'll have to convert
it to Celsius. You also need some things like a long board, three feet
or so, (that's
one meter for you metrofilesphiles)
Board
or a piece of sturdy cardboard. You're going to be spending some time
rolling things down hills. Doesn't that sound exciting? You get to roll things down
hills. How many classes do you get to do that sort of thing?
(52:31)
You will also need an empty tin can
to roll down hill. You will need to observe and collect data, do calculations with
that data, and organize it into tables and graphs in order to analyze it and write
a report. The properly written report is the most important part of the lab. There
are 6 laboratory exercises required, each of which you should plan on spending up
to six hours to complete. The lab exercises are online. You can get to them through
the course home page . For the first lab you will have several options, some of which
require you to make observations throughout the semester. So go to the lab page as
soon as you can.
Now
you also need things like an empty tin can to roll down hill, a styrofoam cup, a
stove for heating water, you know, that kind of stuff. There will be more lab exercises
than you're required to do. That means that you have some choice. But you will need
to set up an experiment or do observations and collect data, do calculations with
that data, and organize it into tables and graphs and analyze and synthesize it.
There will be more on this later, but basically there are 10 laboratory exercises
required. I'll be sending it out to you, or else they'll be in the Study Guide. You'll
be receiving those either by e-mail or you'll find them in the Study Guide. The
exams and the writing assignments (which we'll also get into more later ) aredesigned
to demonstrate learning and understanding rather than memorization. Memorization
is not required for this course. We again will cover this in detail near the conclusion
of the course
OK.
Let me take you on a little trip. Let's suggest an analogy of how this course really
works. Imagine that you're taking a little adventure, like a trip downstream on a
big raft. The trip will take us down the entire length of a mighty river from the
mountains to the sea, and we'll explore as we stop occasionally the river and its
banks. We'll take excursions into some of the larger tributaries, and we'll encounter
some strange territory. But then there's no terrain so rugged and no rapids so swift
that we can't handle it if we exercise caution and use our wits to solve problems
as they come up. We're beginning in the headwaters of the stream. We'll find there's
very little water. Water flows fast and there are lots of rapids and waterfalls.
We must take care not to be overwhelmed and sometime we must work around them. But
they are manageable, again, if we apply our problem-solving skills. Our journey down
the river will stop on the banks now and then to rest, or just to get oriented and
take the river out of our systems. But we will notice as we flow down river, tributary
streams bring new water to the stream as it grows wider and deeper. Eventually it
levels out as it swells into the mighty river and meanders back and forth across
its territory just before it empties into the sea.
We
won't explore much of the sea. By the time we finish, we will understand how the
water got here and where it came from, even though we don't know much about the water
itself. I don't know if that metaphor makes any sense to you, but it if you think
about it, I think you'll see how it unfolds throughout the course.
The
course is nonmathematical as I mentioned before. Although we will use equations to
show how mathematical symbolism identifies relationships and clarifies the thought
process. Yeah, mathematics clarifies our thought process. Imagine that! Other than
for purposes of illustration, calculations will be done in the lab only, unless you
choose to answer numerical questions as part of your written assignments.
OK.
In all four of these sections, we'll focus on the cultural heritage of ideas and
how these ideas relate to life, earth and the universe. Return to our river adventure
for a minute. The water in the river is the total of all the water in its tributaries.
Similarly, the ideas of science are universal, meaning, they're likewise composed
of many ideas which have flowed together to create this common reality that we call
today, physical science. Ideally, the laws of nature do not depend on cultural preferences,
although such preferences drive our scientific methods and classifications. Not entirely
true. We can never be completely free of cultural bias, even in science. But it's
a good ideal. It's a good goal to aim for in our science.
In
our river trip we may find sometimes when we're not sure which where to go, and we
may take a wrong turn now and then. Like explorers, our study of science has taken
some wrong turns. We can learn much from studying these. Some students have said
of this course, "Hey, why do we have to learn the wrong theories? Why don't
you just tell us the right stuff?" Well, why do you think we do that? Why do
you think we'd ask you to study the wrong theories as well as the right ones? Suppose
I partially answer my own question with an analogy that might give you a start, if
you would want to write about this question for today's program assignment. We're
in a strange city with a map and we're in a car. We need to get some place but we're
not in a hurry. We have two choices. We can simply take the shortest route, get where
we want to go. And when get there we can pat ourselves on the back for having learned
how to read a map. But we'll know nothing of the city. With our map as a guide, we
might want to take a few side trips, getting out of the car and walking now and then
to get a sense of the city and its people.
Getting
to know the city will enable us to find our way around eventually without a map.
And that's what we want to do with science. Dangerous? Yeah, maybe in a city, but
not in a telecourse! Can you think of other analogies like this? Or can you find
exceptions to this one?
Why
don't you try writing about it? You don't have to send it in, you know, you're free
to choose what you send. But I highly recommend you spend some time writing about
these various questions that we pose. Write something; let the ideas flow! Don't
worry about what it says. Then go back and read it tomorrow and see how it sounds.
Look for continuity of ideas. Does one idea lead to another? If not, add words, phrases,
sentences or paragraphs to link the ideas or support for those ideas Difficult? Yeah,
sure, at first! Just like physical exercise. If you're a couch potato, it will be
uncomfortable at first to do sit ups. If you're a mental couch potato, it will be
a little uncomfortable at first to think logically and clearly. I'm not suggesting,
of course, that anyone taking this course might actually be a mental couch potato,
although I can't rule out the possibility. So, potato or other vegetable, or no vegetable
at all, we can all stand to improve our mental abilities as well as our physical
ones. We do want to be healthy, don't we?
(58:05)
[Couch Potato: "I wonder if they serve
refreshments? Ah, I suppose this means I have to get up."]
OK.
The culture of science is part of a long tradition of shared culture and has a heavy
Western emphasis. With diverse origins our modern scientific worldview has been a
successful one. Here, near the millennium, we're advancing in an alarming rate in
our knowledge. We're able to see that much of our ancient science was really similar
in different parts of the world, even where there was little or no social contact
for tens of thousands of years, such as between the old and new worlds. This tells
us that there is some commonality to our science. Right?
Different
people at different places at different times have similar ideas. This tells us there's
something very human, tells us there's something very, very common about the way
in which we view the universe. We're beginning to see how much our modern science
has in common with some of the ideas of very ancient cultures.
[Couch
Potato: "I wonder if they serve refreshments? Ah, I suppose this means I have
to get up."]I do need to mention the Course Objectives and Goals
a little bit. We don't have time to cover all of these, but we do want to look at
the primary objectives. The primary objectives are that each student will progress
toward developing an appreciation for the processes and products of science while
learning how to think logically and critically, and also learning how to communicate
your thoughts in writing. Be sure to take some time to study the Goals and Objectives
in the Study Guide. You should be familiar with these, after all, that's what you're
going to be working toward.
As
far as the method of instruction goes for the course, the instruction will consist
of television programs like this one, supplemented with texts as well as interactive
study. E-mail and the World Wide Web provide networking opportunities and encourage
discussion among students and between the students and the instructor. The instructor,
that's me, will guide class discussions and laboratory exercises by
e-mail or fax to all enrolled students. So, again, if you're not enrolled,
but you're interested, call us at the number on your screen for information about
telecourses and enrollment at HCC. The TV programs are designed to emphasize, focus
and supplement the assigned reading, not to replace it. You can't just watch TV.
OK?
You've got to do some reading and studying. All the instruction is based around the
twin concepts of critical thinking and communication of thoughts. The laboratory
exercises which you'll do at home are designed to supplement the programs with a
hands-on approach which should allow each student to investigate on his or her own
some of the principles which we discover downstream as we take our journey through
the series of programs.
OK.
Well, I guess this is as good a time as any to get down to the specific course requirements.
We're getting short on time. Here's the way it works. This is a four-semester hour
course. Three hours of that is lecture and discussion and one hour is laboratory.
So, the lecture discussion, that's what you see here on the TV counts as 75%, that's
three fourths for you math-o-phobes. And the lab, which you do at home counts 25%,
that's one fourth. If
the lab assignments are not included in your Study Guide, they will be sent to you
at appropriate times. Lab
assignments are accessed from the lab web page. There is also a link to this page
from the course home page.
So,
it's important for you to know that the requirements for this course include a significant
amount of writing. It's not feasible to have discussions per se, like we would in
a classroom, so we'll communicate verbally, rather than orally, and, electronically.
At present all the communication will be electronic. That's by internet, e-mail,
fax or phone.
As
new services become available, computer chat rooms and bulletin boards, and so forth,
will be added. Early in the course you'll be informed of the kinds of services available
for your course, if you haven't been already. So the writing assignments for the
course are four types. That's four types. Each one of the four types counts for 25%
of your grade for the laboratory section. I'm sorry, for the lecture section. If
your course is managed differently from this, you'll receive information specific
to your course and if you do, then follow the guidelines for your particular course.
OK.
So here's how it works. As far as electronic communication goes, after enrolling,
each student must contact the instructor by e-mail by the end of the day that program
3 is broadcast. After
enrolling, each student must contact the instructor by e-mail or
modem during the first two weeks of the course. This is your responsibility
to do this. Any student who's enrolled who does not, will be dropped from the course.
This is, I know it sounds a little harsh, but you know, you have to be able to communicate
electronically in order to complete the course, and you must not fall too far behind.
We do it that way simply to facilitate the process for all concerned. So, no materials
will be mailed to you other than the initial course information, and no further paper
will change hands in this course.
OK.
So the requirements for the course, then, fall into four equally weighted areas.
The requirements are designed so that a poor grade on any one assignment will not
hurt your final course grade, nor will a single good grade help you very much. To
get a good grade, you'll have to consistently submit quality work, although an occasional
lapse probably won't be a serious dent in your grade. Got it?
OK
.Now let's look at the four types of assignments. The first of these is the program
responses. Each lesson, each television program, will present numerous questions
for consideration. Some of these are on the video, some of them are in the Study
Guide, some are in the texts. (1:03:18)
For each of the thirty programs each
student is required to submit a written response or reaction. This program response
can be on any topic that is related to the program. It might address one of the program
objectives, or an answer to a question from the study guide. Some of the best responses
are summaries of the program, or a short essay relating the program to something
personal. It should be at least 250
words, which is equivalent to 1 page double spaced with one-inch margins.For
each lesson, each student is required to submit a minimum of one page of written
material which addresses one or more of these questions. One page is about 250 words
double spaced with one inch margins. Any extra pages will be graded and the average
score will be the score for that lesson. So if you have extra pages, be sure that
content's appropriate. In other words, if you're going to write like ten pages and
you only have one page worth of stuff to say, make it one page.
There
will be a total of 30 lesson assignments, which count for one fourth of your grade.
That means that each assignment is worth slightly less than 1% of the total. Assignments
must be received on time to be counted, and no make-ups will be permitted. That's
for the program responses.
(1:04:06)
Now, about the exams:
There will be four
exams, one for
each of the four parts of the course. They will cover the material from the TV programs,
the study guide, and the texts. The exams will be made available online around the
broadcast date of the final TV program of each of the four parts. The exact dates
will be made available each term, usually on a web page. Each student will be given
instructions about how to take the exam at the appropriate time. The exams will require
you to understand the course material, so you will have to do more than merely look
up the answers. The four exams together comprise
25%, that's one fourth, of your grade.
As
far as the exams go. There are also four exams. One for each of the four study sections.
The instructor, that's me, will choose 15 questions from each exam from the study
questions in the Study Guide. The exam dates will be included in the Syllabus Each
student will be notified which 15 questions you are to answer. Each answer should
be as short as possible, so that the total exam should be around three pages long.
The four exams together, again, comprise 25%, that's one fourth, of your grade. Late
exams can be accepted for good cause only and at the discretion of the instructor.
So make sure that you get the exams in on time.OK. The third thing is
the research paper. Each student will complete a formal research paper, eight to
ten pages in length. By formal we mean synthesized information from research sources
with proper bibliographic references. Topic can be anything you want But it must
be relevant to the class material. It is advisable to communicate with me or with
your instructor about the subject and scope of the paper early in the semester so
that you have some idea what you're doing.
Some
suggestions for you as research? Well, there are lots things that you can do. Biographies
of famous scientists, accounts of scientific discoveries, ways in which scientific
discoveries have affected technology or society, descriptions of physical laws and
theories, weird phenomena and their scientific or unscientific explanations. So the
paper will be due on the same date as the final exam. And once again, check the schedule
in your Study Guide or in your syllabus to find out what those dates are.
(1:05:34)
OK. The last thing now, is the laboratory
reports. The laboratory portion of the course is 25% of the grade, just like the
other three. The experiments and observations will be made at home in the natural
laboratory of the physical world that we live in everyday. Some labs are paper and
pencil, others involve making measurements, collecting and analyzing data, or testing
hypotheses In one lab you plot the puzzling retrograde motion of Mars in the night
sky. You will learn how to make measurements, how to draw and analyze a graph to
determine relationships, and how numbers and graphs can help to understand how things
are related to one another. Doing the labs should help you to better understand the
way we have learned to comprehend the physical universe. You are encouraged to work
with another student, either in person or electronically. Of course each student
must submit an independent report regardless. The instructor
can answer questions about the labs. We will
explore some of the central topics that are covered in the TV programs.
OK.
The last thing now, is the laboratory reports. The laboratory portion of the course
is 25% of the grade, just like the other three. Each student is expected to complete
10 laboratory reports of two pages each. The experiments and observations will be
made at home or in the natural laboratory of the physical world around you. There
will be more than one 10 exercises available which will span a variety of types of
activities. Which means that you don't have to do all of the labs, but you choose
10 of those which you find to be something that you can do at home. One or more of
the labs may be of your own design, but if you're going to do that, you need to check
with the instructor first, just to make sure the topic is appropriate and you have
an idea of how to set up the experiment. So what this amounts to, really, is that
each lab exercise is worth about 2 1/2% of your final grade for the course. OK.
So, four things, the program responses, the exams, the research paper and the laboratory
reports. Each of those counts 25% of your grade. Your final grade will be determined
on a 12 point basis as follows: The lecture, 75%; the lab, 25%, so it works out something
like this. Thirty program responses are about three quarters of a percent each for
a total of 25%. Four sections exams at 6.75% each, another 25%. One research paper,
this is the biggie, that's 25% of your grade. And laboratory reports,
2 1/2% each, that's 25% of your grade.
OK,
so the final grades will be determined from your overall class performance on this
12 point scale. (the grading spectrum) with cut-offs as shown. This is also in the
Study
Guidesyllabus,
so you can refer to it at your leisure.
OK,
well here we go. We're down to end here. In this program we've learned the structure
of the telecourse, Science 122, The Nature of Physical Science. Be sure you study
the Goals and Objectives. You'll find these in the Study Guide in Lesson 1.1.
(1:07:25)
OK, there are two things you must do
now. First thing is to contact the instructor by e-mail no later than the broadcast
day of program 3. If you don't want your email address given to the class, include
that in your contact message. Remember, we must hear from you by the end of the broadcast
day for program 3 or you will not be permitted to continue the course as an enrollee.OK,
there are two things you must do now. First thing is to contact the instructor by
e-mail or by fax. The numbers are in the Study Guide. You must also decide if you
want your e-mail address to be given to the rest of the class. This is for enrolled
students, only. And we must hear from you within two weeks or you will not be permitted
to continue the course as an enrollee.
Second
thing. Write a one-page essay that explores a topic from today's program. It can
discuss questions from the study guide, the texts, or from the program. It can be
a summary or a reaction to the program, a brief discussion of something about the
program that you can relate to. It might take you awhile to get accustomed to it.
But, we are here to learn.Second
thing. You have to write a one page essay answering one more of the questions or
solving one or more of the problems either from today's video or from the text at
the end of the chapters which pertain to this program, or from the Study Guide for
today's lesson. There. That's not so hard is it? If you have any questions, let me
know.
(1:08:03)
Don't forget to submit your assignment
before the deadline, and before the next program, look at the objectives and the
questions. Read the text assignments and think about a topic for your assignment.Well,
there. I think we've used all our time for this program, so don't
forget to submit your assignment before the deadline, and before the next program,
look at the objectives and the questions. Read the text assignments and think about
a topic for your assignment.
Remember,
when it comes to science, get physical. Bye, see you next time.
Music
The
End
