Uniting heavens and earth - Research Paper Example

Uniting Heavens and Earth of affiliation Uniting Heavens and Earth The nature of science is made up of the rarely taught but extremely important parts of working science such as its levels of uncertainty, its realm and limits, its social aspects, its biases, and the reasons for its reliability. Ignorance towards these aspects has brought about misuse, abuse and misrepresentation of science. Science is limited, and with that it cannot be applied to every kind of issue. It can only be applied to phenomenon that is natural as it cannot be used to explain supernatural and magical occurrences. This is because such occurrences cannot be tested using scientific methods and any result reached might have been influenced by some external forces. Given that scientific concepts that are highly credible have stood the test by critics for all these years is the proof of reliability of scientific knowledge. With the increase of scientific knowledge as it accumulates over time, there is more understanding of the natural world. Matters arising from politics, religion, ethics and esthetical judgments are in a general way away from science. Scientific knowledge is uncertain, that which is scientifically known only has some level of confidence backing it: a certain degree of probability. A lot of scientific ideas have gone through tests and have shown their reliability. These have been the closest to facts as any idea could be yet some are just hunches that are pending testing that will finally prove their probability. Yet there also exists the in betweens at every level. Science has the ability of being done poorly and being misused. There exist all forms of quackery, wrong advertisements, and forms of pseudoscience that have unconfirmed information being used as facts to prove or disapprove a huge range of mysterious phenomenon. The process of science is social as it is done by people working together in collaboration. The procedure, outcomes and analysis must be shared among the scientific community, and the public in conferences and other review platforms. In such forums, fraud, errors and oversights get exposed and true findings can be affirmed and confirmed. Due to the fact that it is being done by people, it also has its biases that can be addressed by the fact that it is open (Indiana.edu 2014). Newton’s three laws of motion Isaac Newton’s work changed how humanity understands the universe in a manner simplified in three laws. The first law states that “Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.” This law is recognized essentially as the Galileo’s inertia concept and is simply known as law of inertia. The second law states that “The relationship between an objects mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma.” As indicated by their symbols Acceleration and force are vectors. According to this law, the force vector direction is the same as the acceleration vector direction. Given that it allows the quantitative calculation of dynamics (changes of velocity with application of force) it is the strongest of the three Newton’s laws. The difference between this and what Aristotle held to is that Newton states that a force only causes a change in velocity (f=ma) while Aristotle stated that it maintains velocity (F=mv). Aristotle’s view is based on failure to take into account the role played by frictional force. The third law states that “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” A perfect example of this concept is when someone comes off a boat towards the show, the boat seems to move in the opposite direction, and one may fall in the water if not careful (utk.edu 2014). Conservation laws Failure for a system to interact with the environment leads to unchanged status of some mechanical properties of that system. These unchanged properties are called constants of motions. In such state they are said to be conserved and the resulting conservation laws can be considered to be the most fundamental principles in relation to mechanics. Some examples of conserved quantities include energy, momentum and angular momentum and these are precise for isolation system. What is stated here as principles of mechanics: implications of these conservation laws are far beyond symmetries of nature that is not violated. In any theory in any branch of science, these serve as strong constraints. Others include conservation of charge, baryons and leptons (gsu.edu 2014). Universal law of gravitation A popular story goes around that Isaac Newton was seated under and apple tree, then suddenly an apple fell on him that is when he thought of the universal law of gravity. Legend or not this contains the basic concept of the law. The apple experienced acceleration as it moved to the ground from the position of hanging on the tree. Going with Newton’s second law, there must have been a force that caused the acceleration. The force is what is known as gravity and the acceleration therefore is acceleration due to gravity. If the apple tree is twice as tall, then again the apple is accelerated as it heads to the ground: meaning the force of gravity reaches as high as the tallest apple tree. If the force can reach the tallest tree, this means that it can reach even further than that, particularly it can reach up to the orbit of the moon. This means that the orbiting of the moon around the earth is as a result of the earth’s gravitational force as this force is just enough to change the velocity of the moon to go round the earth (utk.edu 2014). Reason why planets orbit the Sun A planet orbiting the sun is just like the moon orbiting the earth. The lighter object orbits the heavier and given that the Sun is the heaviest body in the solar system, being 1000 times heavier than the heaviest planet Saturn and 300,000 times heavier than the earth it pulls the planets. Following Newton’s concept, the suns gravity pulls on the planets just in the same manner the earth’s gravity pulls on the moon. Heavier objects exert stronger gravitational pull and as the sun is the heaviest, it produces the strongest gravitational pull of all the bodies in the solar system. Though sun pulls the planets the planets do not fall into the sun and burn up, instead they are moving sideways. This is in the same way as having a weight tied to a string and swinging it around. As long as the swinging is constant the weight keeps going around. In the same way the sun keeps pulling objects towards it but the sideway movement keeps the planets from falling into it. So without the pull to the centre the planets would go flying away and without the sideway movement the planets will fall to the centre of the sun and burn (NASA 2014). The nature of science is such that it has limits as it cannot be applied to every problem, it is inherently constant as its knowledge comes with a confidence that is relative, it can be poorly done and misused as a lot of information that is false and unconfirmed have been used to imply facts, and it is a process that is very social as it involves people that work in collaboration. Newton’s came up with three laws, the first states that uniform motion is not affected unless a force is applied to it, the second states that force is equal to mass x acceleration. The third law states that every action has an equal opposite force. Conservation law implies that if a system does not interact with the environment, then certain mechanical properties remain unchanged. The reason why planets keep orbiting the sun is because the sun being a greater object exerts greater gravitational force that keeps pulling the planets towards it, but the planets circular motion keeps them from falling toward the sun. References Gsu.edu (2014) Conservation Laws. Retrieved from http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/conser.html Indiana.edu (2014). What IS the Nature of Science? Retrieved from http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/nos.html Nasa.gov (2014). Why do the planets go around the Sun? Retrieved from http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-solar-system/planet-orbits.html Utk.edu (2014). Newtons Three Laws of Motion. Retrieved from http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newton3laws.html Utk.edu (2014). Sir Isaac Newton: The Universal Law of Gravitation. Retrieved from http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html Read More