Referents (some old)

1. Referents (some old) Referents are used to describe the properties of an object “green as grass”, “big as a horse”, “slow as molasses” , “tough as shoe leather”, “stubborn as a mule”. Measurement Attempts something more price about a particular property of an object Length Measurement. Foot, inch (end joint of the thumb), cubit (length of elbow to fingertip), fathom (fingertip to fingertip – outstretched hands) Volume Measurement. Jigger (two mouthfuls), cup (8 jiggers or 16 mouthfuls) Time. (1/86400) of a solar day.

2. Terms (Scientific Investigations) cont. • Valid Well grounded on Principle or Evidence • Evidence Something that tends to prove grounds for belief. • Scientific Law An explanation concerned with wider-ranging phenomena than a principle (Sometimes identified by the name of a scientific). Can be expressed verbally, with an equation, or with a graph. Ex. E = M C2 • Equation A statement of equality between two quantities • Law A sequence of events in nature observed to occur with unvarying uniformity, happen time after time • Scientific Method The task of collecting observations, developing explanations and testing explanations.

3. Terms relating to Science Investigation • Scientific Investigations Provides understanding through experimental evidence • Hypothesis An unproved theory tentatively accepted • Theory A formulation of underlying principles which have been verified to some degree (Theory of Gravity) • Principle A fundamental truth upon which others are based • Concept An idea or thought • Experiment A test or trial undertaken to discover something not yet known • Controlled Experiment A trial which compares two situations in which all influencing factors are identical except one

4. How do you view the idea of atoms? • Have you seen an atom • Is there evidence for you to believe in atoms even though you may never have seen one? • Would your concept of atoms be an hypothesis, theory or principle? • Would it help if you saw a picture of an atom?

6. Standards of the SI System (Metric System) Formulated by French Academy of Science 1791, adopted world wide 1960 as the SI System of Units. Meter (1/10 millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator. A metal bar was made previous to 1960, in 1960 standard referred to a certain number of wavelengths of a spectrum, in 193 was changed to the distance light traveled in a certain time period Second (1/86,400 of a solar day). Today, an atomic clock is used (accurate to a few millionths of a second per year). Kilogram A unit of mass. Mass is represented by the inertia an object has. Standards for a mass where a given platinum plated mass standard kept somewhere in France. Later standards developed. Ampere (defines charge), Kelvin (temperature), mole (mol) also a unit measuring the amount of substance and Candela (cd) a unit measuring the intensity of light.

7. Observations on “The Whirly-gig of Time1” • Time Perhaps there is no such thing as “Time”. The past is memory, the future is fantasy, and the present (exactly now) is the part most difficult to understand. • Science Its purpose to to make humans make sense of the world. Science must be brought into perspective with common sense. • Concepts of Archaic Time and Absolute Time Early ideas on time. Archaic time (natural time). Absolute time (flows without relation to anything external) • The Arrow of Time (1) Imagine a Q ball in billiards striking the eight ball. (a collision occurs). Run the event “backward in time” in your mind. Is it feasible. 1A term first described by William Shakespere

8. What Physics Tells Us About Time On Monday afternoon, January 14, 2002 at 4:00 P.M. Professor Hans von Baeyer of William and Mary College presented a Lilly Science and Society lecture in the Science Building of the I.S.U. campus entitled: "That Relentless Whirligig: What Physics Tells Us About Time" The Instructor of this course acknowledges that the following notes were taken from this wonderful lecture for this class and he is indebted to Dr. von Baeyer

9. “The Whirly-gig of time… continued” • (2) Now imagine the “a break” in the game of billiards. Rack them up and strike the group head on “hard” with the Q ball. • Run this sequence backwards in your mind. Is there a difference between (1) and (2)? What is that difference? • The difference between (1) and (2) is order. • Now we have a newer “physical definition” of time. Time runs in the direction of growing disorder. • Let us examine the “arrow of time” as it might pertain to our aging universe. In the beginning there was order. Simply because the universe (although extremely chaotic in its early stages) was much smaller in size. As the universe ages disorder increases. (an example is the “burn cycle” of stars. Hydrogen is converted to helium by nuclear fusion and eventually ends up in elements as large as iron. Thus the “aging” of a simple star indicates the growing state of disorder. • However there are “pockets” in the growing state of disorder. One example of a pocket is “life”.

10. Nature delights in creating pockets or “order” in this sea of growing “disorder”. • Another name for the state of “order” is Entropy. Entropy is a word taken from a branch of physical science called Thermodynamics. Entropy is a measure of the state of order. As the universe ages its entropy increases. However, as life “begins” such as the birth of a baby“entropy” is reduced or low in this human entity. As the baby grows up to be an adult, its entropy increases. Although still “ordered” with respect to the universe around it still itself is increasing disorder. Examine the newborn baby’s skin in comparison to that of a very old human adult. A baby drinks milk (a simple ordered molecule). The milk breaks down (the baby extracts energy from it) thus the disorder of the milk increases.

11. Thus, the concept of time, as explained by entropy (a term gained from statistical mechanics and a scientist named Boltzmann) seems to serve as a good explanation for the “arrow of time”. • Now enter Einstein (1905) and the Special Theory of Relativity. The Special Theory states that an observer in a moving frame of reference cannot tell he is moving and that the speed of light is constant in any moving frame of reference. • However, Einstein “muddied up the water” since “moving clocks run slow”. The best way to understand this is to perform a “gedanken” experiment. This has lead to the “idea of a twin paradox” which is not really a paradox at all.

13. Thus moving clocks run slow. But only as seen by me, the stationary observer. The twin paradox (which is not really a paradox) simply states that two twins on earth decide one twin is to go on a space trip at 99.9% the speed of light. The moving clock is slow. Hence the speeding twin does not age as fast as the twin on the earth. The twin returns back to earth to find that he or she is much younger than the earthbound twin. • This principle has been verified experimentally today with atomic clocks in satellites. • Thus travel into the future is possible. Travel backward through time is impossible. • In 1915 with the publishing of the General Theory of Relativity by Einstein it became obvious that gravity also affected the arrow of time. Time creeps near a black hole.