The Anthropic Principle
As an example of the power of the Anthropic Principle, consider the number of directions in space. It is a matter of common experience that we live in three-dimensional space. That is to say, we can represent the position of a point in space by three numbers. For example, latitude. longitude and height above sea level. But why is space three-dimensional? Why isn't it two, or four, or some other number of dimensions, hke in science fiction? In fact, in M-theory space has ten dimensions (as wel...Gamification Auction Mechanic
On a previous assessment, Mrs. Tabor asked her students three different questions to assess their science-centered critical thinking. Based on the answers, she gives each student a chip with a different color and value (much like the suns in Ra). Students who demonstrated an “average” level of critical-thinking skills get chips worth 3 or 4; students who demonstrated greater critical-thinking skills get chips worth slightly less (2 or 3); and students who struggled a bit get chips worth m...Perceiving Infinite Suns in the Night Sky
Elpino. Why then do we not see the other bright bodies which are earths circling around the bright bodies which are suns? For beyond these we can detect no motion whatever; and why do all other mundane bodies (except those known as comets) appear always in the same order and at the same distance? Philotheo. The reason is that we discern only the largest suns, immense bodies. But we do not discern the earths because, being much smaller, they are invisible to us. Similarly it is not impossible...Bruno's observations and reasoning.
Hypothesizing on a World Without Stars
'Well, then, supposing there were other suns in the universe.' He broke off a little bashfully. 'I mean suns that are so far away that they're too dim to see. It sounds as if I've been reading some of that fantastic fiction, I suppose.' 'Not necessarily. Still, isn't that possibility eliminated by the fact that, according to the Law of Gravitation, they would make themselves evident by their attractive forces?' 'Not if they were far enough off,' rejoined Be...Asimov's world with so many suns there is no night is a place where people hypothesize other configurations of worlds they cannot see and do not believe exist.
Teddy Roosevelt Considers the Night Sky
After an evening of talk, perhaps about the fringes of knowledge, or some new possibility of climbing inside the minds and senses of animals, we would go out on the lawn, where we took turns at an amusing little astronomical rite. We searched until we found, with or without glasses, the faint, heavenly spot of light-mist beyond the lower left-hand comer of the Great Square of Pegasus, when one or the other of us would then recite: That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our......each night to feel appropriately small.
On the Nature of Things...
No single thing abides; but all things flow. Fragment to fragment clings-the things thus grow Until we know and name them. By degrees They melt, and are no more the things we know. Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift. You too, oh earth-your empires, lands, and seas - Least with your stars, of all the galaxies, Globed from the drift like these, like these you ...An ancient poem on the nature of reality and science as the guiding light.
Notes from the "Science Project Showcase" session
No direct quote for this meme.Notes from the various online projects presented in this session.
Karen James
Galapagos Live http://galapagoslife.wordpress.com
· Survival Rival – teens compete against each other to make Darwin videos, winner goes to Galapagos.
· Darwin Online: searches against all of darwin’s writings http://darwin-online.org.uk
· Wanted girls who won the contest to recreate Darwin’s experience, taking notes, but doing so online and uploading photos.
NASA STS-133 Launch Tweetup http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup
· Nasa has over 30 twitter accounts, astronauts tweet live from space.
· People sign up for tweetup, 100-200 are selected, and get a front row seat to the launch
· http://justin.tv/nasatweetup VAB - Vehicle Assembly Building
· Commander of Shuttle is husband of Gabriel Giffords
· Follow @nasa and @nasatweetup – will post link to signup
· Follow #nasatweetup
ISS Wave http://isswave.org
· Heavensabove website: give your location and it will tell you where to look to see the ISS in the night sky
· @twist will send you a tweet when the ISS will pass that night.
· Wouldn’t it be cool to coordinate a mass wave at the ISS around the world. Created a map of people waving at the ISS over the holidays.
· ISS goes around every 90 minutes. Need to see it right at sunset to get the reflection of the suns rays.
· Maybe schedule one for Yuri’s night, this year is the 50th anniversary (April ?DATE?)
Sophia Collins
I’m a Scientist http://imascientist.org.uk
· See Stacy Baker’s Presentation
· Students appear to get invested in scientists, rooting for them the way we root for designers on Project Runway.
· Student’s ask scientists any question they want.
· How hard would it be to set this up with Joomla or Drupal?
· Go to website and look at archive from last year: 6,400 students asking thousands of questions.
· Kids get engaged because of the reversal of power, students get to ask the questions and students get to decide which scientists get to move on.
· 60% of students went on the site in their own time at home.
· Scientists got into it, staying up late making videos
· Scientists can come from anywhere, students are primarily from UK, but other schools can apply
· Majority of scientists are academic
Kristi Holmes
· Semantic web platform to highlight scientists areas of expertise and interests.
· 120 people at 7 different institutions working on it.
· So much information, vivo filters down to meaningful results
· Harvests data from verified sources, uses RDF triples
· For collaboration, finding resources in academia,
· Did a search on biomedical informatics, got a list of potential collaborators
· Profile with data from PubMed, coauthorship record
· Each institution maintains their own data, allowing customization to the institution and what’s meaningful to the organization.
· Open Source: see sourceforge
Adrian Ebsary
Peer Review Radio http://peerreviewradio.com
· Interviews with scientists based around a theme, subjects are given questions before hand
· Encourage students into journalism, teach them writing skills, train students in web design and sound editing skills
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