SCIENCE
"The most beautiful thing
we can experience is the
mysterious. It is the source
of all true art and science.“
Albert Einstein
Nothing in life is to be feared. It
is only to be understood.
Marie Curie
A scientist in his laboratory is
not a mere technician: he is
also a child confronting natural
phenomena that impress him
as though they were fairy tales.
Marie Curie was the first woman
to win a Nobel prize and the first
person to win two Nobel prizes.
"Science contributes to our culture in many ways, as a
creative intellectual activity in its own right, as the light
which has served to illuminate man's place in the universe,
and as the source of understanding of man's own nature.“
John F. Kennedy
SCIENCE
&
OBSERVATION
In the field of observation, chance
favors only the mind that is prepared.
Louis Pasteur
God hides things by putting them
near us. Ralph Waldo Emerson
To acquire knowledge, one must study;
but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
Marilyn Vos Savant
You are one of the rare people who can separate
your observation from your perception...you see
what is, where most people see what they expect.
Tsitsi Dangarembga
The ability to make careful, complete and
unbiased observations is one of the
attributes of a great scientist.
What do you observe in the following slides?
Can you find the perfect 5 pointed star in the figure below?
It is relatively small and in the bottom half.
Report your observations about this figure.
Young woman?
Old woman?
Perhaps one or the other or neither or both.
Recorded observations should describe the figure and
not come to definitive conclusions about its content.
Report your observations about this figure.
A rabbit, looking right?
Or a duck, looking left?
Or just an artist’s drawing designed to create
disagreement depending on perspective.
birds, tree?
flowers, butterfly?
branches?
or beautiful women?
Is this a person?
Uh, Oh! Not everything is as it appears. Sometimes
the brain does not interpret information correctly.
In this case and in many other cases, interpretation
depends on perspective.
Good doormat?
Sure!!!!
Frog?
Or Horse?
Color Blindness Tests
The following are common tests used to detect color blindness.
Can you read the numbers or letters hidden in each square?
You should see 58 (upper left), 18 (upper right),
E (lower left) and 17 (lower right). If you cannot see any of the
above numbers/letters, you may suffer from color blindness.
Can you read the words?
What is above the woman’s head?
Is it a window, a picture or a container on her head?
The description of your observation should not depend
on your cultural background and should describe the
object without concluding what it is.
What is the symbol in the middle?
Perception depends on the environment. If you block out the
12 and 14, your answer is probably a B but if you block out the
A and C, your answer is probably the number 13.
Who are the people in these pictures?
Both are Bill Clinton.
(look at the faces)
Clinton and Gore
Can you count the black dots?
Parallel
Are the horizontal lines parallel, or do they slope?
Is the figure a perfect
square or is it a
trapezoid?
perfect
square!
same length!
Is the vertical
line on the
right longer
or the same
length as the
one on the
left?
SPIRAL OR CIRCLES?
Is the SUV in the back larger than the one in front?
No!!!!!
Is there movement?
Do you believe that A and B are the same
color and intensity? If not, watch when the
surrounding squares are blacked out!
What is the color and intensity relationship
between A and B?
Working in a glove box – good science!
Or is this bad science?
From Parade Magazine,
12/05/2010
“Jack Black is cooking
up a reimagined
Gulliver’s Travels….”
What is Jack doing that
Is against all chemistry
safety guidelines?
This is called an "impossible object", which means that
it's impossible to build. But drawing it is not impossible,
as you see in the image.
Now what do you see?
You may not see it at first, but the white spaces
create the word OPTICAL, while the blue landscape
spells out ILLUSION.
This one is quite interesting!
The word TEACH reflects as LEARN.
Arocdnicg to rsceearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t
mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng
is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in
the rghit pcale. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll raed it
wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace
the huamn mnid deos not raed
ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod
as a wlohe.
Pick a number between 2 and 10.
Multiply the number by 9.
Add the two numbers together (e.g., for 18, 1+8 =9).
Now subtract 5.
Right, now map the result to a letter of the alphabet,
where A=1, B=2 and so on.
Think of a country which begins with that letter.
Take the second letter of the country and think of an
animal which begins with that letter.
Think of the color of that animal...
You're thinking of a grey elephant from Denmark, right?
Chemists use the mole as a basic unit.
One mole is the number of atoms of
carbon in 12 g (0.42 oz) of carbon or
602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms
(6.02x1023 atoms)
Would a mole of marshmallows cover
the 48 contiguous states of the U.S. ?
diamond
graphite
The three forms of carbon.
buckyballs
Your first response should be – what
size marshmallows? Assuming
regular size marshmallows, a mole of
marshmallows would cover the United
States to a depth of about 600 miles.
When you drink a glass of water, you swallow
about 10 moles of water or 6 septillion (6x1024)
6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
molecules of water. Recently it was reported that
the Universe has 1/2 of a mole of stars.
= 9.6x10-11 m
= 3.8x10-9 inches
= teeny, tiny!!
Notice that water is not
linear but bent. As a
result, water is polar and
has unusual properties.
Each of the two beakers below contains only one substance.
Which substance exhibits abnormal behavior?
Acetophenone Water
acetophenone
water
acetic acid
dioxane
p-xylene
oleic acid
Because water is probably the only substance for which you ever
see both the liquid and solid phases in the same system, you have
probably accepted the observation of its behavior (solid floats in the
liquid) as normal. However, if you think about it, the solid should be
more dense than the liquid and sink. Almost all substances other
than water behave like acetophenone so water (fortunately for us –
why?) behaves abnormally.
“The best way to have a good idea
is to have a lot of ideas.”
Linus Pauling (1901 – 1994), the only person to have ever won
two unshared Nobel Prizes (Chemistry – 1954, Peace – 1962)
He attended Washington High School in Portland but because of a technicality did
not receive his diploma until 1962, long after he had received his bachelor's degree
from Oregon State College in 1922 and his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology in 1925.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1962/pauling-bio.html
For a directory of Internet sites related to climate change
and other fossil fuel issues such as ocean acidification,
please visit:
http://murov.info/climatechange.htm
Rachel Carson, author of
Silent Spring, deserves
significant credit for
initiating the
environmental movement.
Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one
species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.
One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself:
What if I had never seen this before?
What if I knew I would never see it again?”
Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen,
among the beauties and mysteries of the earth,
are never alone or weary of life.