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Right away I notice how myself and this person noticed how incorporating the Copenhagen interpretation made Gribbin’s argument stronger. I like how this person related the idea behind Heisenberg’s book to their own life. Instead of using something opposing your viewpoint as something negative, it would be more enriching to use it as strength to your argument. I know in research papers especially, counter arguments are necessary in order to prove your idea the best out of everyone else. 

I also agree that the example about the different perspective of time as being interesting. Time is really based on perspective and perception. Everyone sees or experiences something different I agree; however, sometimes time can be the same for each party. This person question at the end of paragraph two is very relevant. Is everything the same from an overlooked point of view of everyone and everything in the world? If so then reality can be definite, but this we do not yet know.  

paradoxes and possibilities

In paradoxes and possibilities, I learned about how a Copenhagen interpretation functions. A Copenhagen interpretation is an expression of the meaning of quantum mechanics. The purpose of the author incorporating the Copenhagen interpretation is to demonstrate is to demonstrate how adversity against a certain theory essentially makes it stronger. This is because defenders are able to refute all of the attacker’s arguments. A point made by Heisenberg is his book Physics and Philosophy, pointed out that counter proposal of the Copenhagen interpretation must sacrifice the symmetry of the quantum theory. These symmetry properties cannot be sacrificed though because they are held to genuine features of nature. This made me think differently about how I approach arguments. I shouldn’t take counterarguments as weaknesses of my own argument, but use that counter argument to demonstrate why my argument is correct.

           Something else I have acquired from this reading is the idea of time. In the reading the author mentions how a photon traveling to the earth would take thousands of years on the journey measured by time on earth, but according to the photon, time is not a concern. This brings up how things can be subjective. Since experiences are different, our perception is going to be essentially different. Since we have different perceptions, we might not be able to come to a conclusion since experiences and essentially different. How can we say something is definite when everyone experiences a different reality? This ties into the Fabric of Cosmos reading  because it discusses how everyone’s reality is actually different.

           I enjoyed that the author compared Einstein and Bohr’s conflicting arguments about the energy of photons. Einstein came up with a box, that if you weighed a box, the waited for a photon to escape, you can calculate the energy of the photon that escaped. Bohr saw a problem with measuring how the box was weighted, which resulted in uncertainty. This example that the author included of conflicting ideas demonstrates that theory and practicality will have some problems with each other.

           Overall, this reading was very insightful and changed my thinking.  

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Paradoxes and Possibilities

Time itself is debatable but yet predictable. These two aspects of time are the essence and representation of what direction time is capable of. For years, decades, and centuries, time has never failed to move forward and continue to the next day. Forward is the direction our lives and future lives promise to prevail; however, a major debate is whether time can move back. What we do know is that time is related to space. Of course, we think we understand the space we live in, but there are other aspects of space as humans we do not yet understand. As Gribbin argues in the text, time travel will not be surely known if time is not reconstructed and expanded into a new belief we have not explored. The notion of time as being intertwined with space is rejected by Gribbin. Throughout the reading, he details his perspective as space and time as being individual and independent quantities, which intersect perpendicularly.

To start his argument, Gribbin introduces the Copenhagen interpretation. In order to understand Gribbin’s argument, I found it necessary to research the Copenhagen interpretation. After reading about it, I understood it interpreted the world of atoms represented by quantum mechanics. Out of all the theories in science, quantum mechanics has proved to be the most successful as it has led to numerous improvements in the ideas of science we follow today. However, the theory of quantum mechanics was debated and disagreed upon by Bohr and Heisenberg, the two main founding fathers. Just as this theory challenged the founding father’s thoughts, the theory challenges our imaginations and perspective of the world daily. Quantum mechanics is what made time and space relevant. In fact, Gribbin stated that while discussing the “paradoxes and possibilities” the Copenhagen interpretation is indeed unavoidable.

The main thing that stood out to me in the reading was the type of relationship that time and space have. Does space increase as time increases? Or does time increase as space stays the same? The more I think about the concept, the more complex it seems to be. Time will always move on and will always change, but it seems to me that space does not always follow this pattern. A period of time represents a particular moment and what happens in that moment. As I am writing this reflection, I am taking up space by the second. Sometimes I may move so the time and space relationship would be proportionally related. However, this can vary from daily actions. I do not think time and space react perpendicularly to one another. Although I do not agree fully with Gribbin, I do agree that time has not been explored in all of its elements. Time has to be different in some way from our preconceived idea for other things such as time travel to be possible.

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Poster Presentation Assignment

One thing I liked about some of the presentations was the layout. The posters including graphs made the research topic more understandable since it gave a visual representation. In addition, I liked some of the designs and the organization of the subtitles. Many of the posters had long paragraphs, which I did not like. Instead, I liked the posters with organized bullet points. this helped me save time trying to get a gist of the topic and process. 

One thing that could be improved is how far it can be read. On all of the posters, I had to get really close just to read and look at the graphs. 

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Right away I agree with this person because as humans I believe we do not know what reality is. If something is set in stone and proven to be factual from all perspectives then it is indeed true; however, as this person mentioned there are too many perspectives and different definitions of the aspect of reality. I also, agree with the idea that time can only move forward, but this is only what we know. I thought about the opposite as well, which is maybe time can move in all directions. There are many things still unknown about time for the conclusion that time only moves in one direction. 

The quantum mechanics idea really stood out to me as well. Knowing that something is a possibility and has the chance of occurring, in reality, gives it the opportunity to be definite. 

Lastly, the beginning of the book was very interesting as it began with an anecdote. The transition from the anecdote to the actual scientific components made a lot of sense. I felt like as the reader I was in Greene’s shoes. 

The Fabric of Cosmos Response

Something that I have acquired from this reading is the notion that we as humans do not know what reality is. It is too many unknowns to truly define what he reality are. The author brought up a really good point when they discussed about how there is multiple perspectives about reality. If we really knew what reality was, then we would be able to have a definite answer on what it is. There are too many different perspectives on what reality is to have a definite answer on what it’s truly is.

Something else I’ve learned from the reading is how there is a direction associated with time. When events happen, they do not go back and reverse themselves, they just happen. These asymmetries do govern our lives because these events that occur go in a direction. If they were not going in a direction they would be able to be reversed.

Something else I learned from the reading is how you can never actually predict something, just the probability of it. According to quantum mechanics, the universe participates games in chance. When envisioning reality, it has endless possibilities of what it could be. Using quantum mechanics , you consider all possibilities. When something is definite, the possibilities are thus relinquished.

I enjoyed that the author opened up the story with an anecdote. That had an impact on how I read the passage. The author effectively enthralled the reading in the initial paragraph to keep the reader going. Compared to other passages I have read, I feel this passage did the best to keep my interest. I also feel like I could relate to the author because he used an example of when he started to read. To read the books on his father bookshelf.  I also enjoyed how the writer challenged laws of physics in his readings such as Einstein’s and Newton’s laws. This reinforces the idea that as a learner you should always be questioning what you’re learning to question its accuracy. It shows the writer is truly invested in the subject of physics and they are not just passively gaining information but challenging the information to improve it and advance the subject of physics.

The author brought up the notion that the impact of new understanding on evaluation of life and reality are insignificant. I disagree with this point. I feel that new understanding about life actually has a very big impact on the evaluation of life. If Darwin never went to the Galapagos Islands and studied several different birds and realized that the birds evolved based on their environment, we would not have the theory of evolution. We probably would know very little about DNA.. So new understanding actually brings a lot of our evaluation on life in our opinion because we come closer to the truth each time some new understanding is gained.

This reading helped me realize that reality is truly undefined.

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The Fabric of The Cosmos

Out of all of the readings, “The Fabric of The Cosmos” is by far my favorite and the most interesting. From the start to the end of the reading, I was immersed and engaged with the topics and how the topics were integrated to create a timeline of where we are today in the world of physics. Today at lunch, Krisi and I had a very deep conversation about one of the topics in the reading. We read that scientists are in the process of developing an equation that incorporates all of the equations solved thus far. However, Krisi and I discussed that the unknown things about time are what hold scientists back from creating this equation. Time is such a debatable topic, even though as human beings we experience it 24/7. This is what makes it crazy to think about because we live through time every day without understanding exactly what it is and the impact it can have if controlled. Without finalizing whether time is a scalar or a vector or a 3-dimension or 4-dimension, our world can not be truly understood. In addition, the unknown identities of time do not align with other variables such as mass and velocity. Time is the only variable that is independent of everything else and continues without dependency of something else. While Krisi and I discussed this, it became clear that the mysteries of time are most likely holding back future discoveries and advances.

Another interesting idea was in the “Roads to Reality” chapter, where Greene wrote about quantum reality. My favorite part is when Greene says “that something you do over here can be instantaneously linked to something happening over there, regardless of distance  (pg 11).” After reading this part of the reading, I thought about how my actions potentially influence or align parallel to someone else’s across the world. I also thought about whether my future and past motions were already planned and I may not even know it. The concepts throughout this reading seemed so simple and rational yet so complex.

The structure of the reading is divided into chapters, but also by subtitles. The first chapter, “Roads to Reality,” sets the tone for the rest of the reading. In each subtitle, as the reader, I felt I understood more and more about this so called “road to reality.” Every chapter and subtitle built off of what was already discussed, which made the reading more understandable. Furthermore, I thought the reading resembled a timeline of where physics once was and where it is today.

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Right away I agree with this person because I too questioned the validity of the author. Before reading, I already had a preconceived notion that objects are not living, but instead, myself and other human beings are. Therefore, reading about a new and somewhat odd perspective on these laws the author writes about, makes me step outside of what I think and understand other ideas. I also agree with the thought that not all theories and thoughts are credible. There seems to be significant evidence covering both aspects of what makes up light: particles or waves. However, I would not go as far as to say that because one specific idea in science is controversial that all of science is controversial. For example, it is evident that everything is made of atoms, which in my opinion is true without a doubt. 

Physics Reflection 3

From Gary Zukav’s The Dancing ‘Wu Li Masters, I have been led to question the validity of theories construed by scientists and physicists. While there have been thoughts that are considered laws and unable to be disproved, if there are some areas that seem concrete but are able to still be contradicted, who is to say that any thoughts are absolute and undisprovable?  As Zukav begins explaining the quantum theory and movement of light, he states that light is made of particles, but shortly after makes a contradiction.  Zukav states, “The only problem was that one hundred and two years earlier an Englishman named Thomas Young had shown that light is made of waves, and no one, including Einstein, was able to disprove him” (54). This presents a problem, as no two clashing theories can both be correct.  This leads me to wonder if any thought can be truly credible, as it seems that there is always someone who can craft an opposing notion.  If all theories are subjected to this level of questionability, then is science itself so easily disproved? How are new theories to be constructed based on the principles of previous theories if the former ideas are only transitory?  The answer seems to be simple, science is not to be trusted, there are no laws which can be actually considered fact, as so many theories are rejected easily, even though they were previously considered uncontradictable. This is a worrisome thought to me, as we then know nothing about science, we simply accept a batch of “facts” and continue to research and study these principles.  If a theory is disproved, then scientists and researchers who spent their entire lives dedicated to the theories wasted their time.  Overall, this reading led me to not trust scientific principles at all, and I now do not know if any concept that we have created can be considered a “fact”.

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The Dancing Wu Li Masters

In the opening of “The Dancing Wu Li Masters,” Gary Zukav defines the term ‘organic’ and explains how “most people think that physics is about things that are not living.” The first paragraph really caught my attention because it made me reflect on my perspective of organic energy playing a role in physics and proved that I would be in that group of “most people.” Automatically, my perspective changed and I now see physics differently as it incorporates more than what is really seen. Throughout the reading, I was continuously surprised by the way Zukav analyzed the meaning behind specific scientific ideas and scientific history. For example, the two most interesting ideas to me were the idea of whether things such as rocks are organic and how the color changes on a black body based on the temperature. Through an in-depth comparison of humans and things, and the thought process of Jim de Wit, Zukav showed how de Wit’s point of view conflicted with the accepted human being perspective. At first, I did not think it possible for a rock to live, think, or feel. Before finishing the reading, I would automatically relate these aspects to describe humans only. However, Zukav and Jim de Wit have convinced me to see this idea in another possible perspective. The things humans so ‘uniquely’ do, make choices, process information, and react accordingly, may not be unique to just humans.

I believe the overall purpose of the reading was to convey how Planck’s idea of quantum physics initiated multiple more scientific ideas as we know today. Along with these scientific ideas comes organic energy. Zukav starts and finishes the chapter with the reader contemplating the world of physics and the world in which we live. I know I will not stop thinking about whether a rock is living and I am the one actually dead.

The structure of the reading included multiple examples followed by analysis in order for Zukav to connect the examples to his purpose. I thought the examples and references to scientific figures were necessary for the author to give the reader a deeper explanation of organic energy, wave patterns, etc.

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College App Essay

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

My mom, sister, brother, and I drove through the front entrance and made a left into a roundabout circle leading to the parking lot reserved for the Meadowood dormitory. The bright lights shining from my mom’s 2013 Town and Country van illuminated the shabby ol’ building, composed of brown and red brick with questionable shutters that were on the verge of falling off. I stared at the building a little while. I kept repeating the name. Meadowood. Meadowood. The more I looked, the less it looked like a Meadowood. When I thought of the word it sounded pleasant and welcoming. I remember picturing it residing in a field with the greenest grass, sprinkled with the brightest daisies; however, the aura of the building, especially in the pitch black night, made it more unapproachable than anything.

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Prompt B

“Putting implements as common as knife and fork and chopsticks into an evolutionary perspective, tentative as it necessarily must be, gives a new slant to the concept of their design, for they do not spring fully formed from the mind of some maker but, rather, become shaped and reshaped through the (principally negative) experiences of their users within the social, cultural, and technological contexts in which they are embedded. The formal evolution of artifacts, in turn, has profound influences on how we use them.”  (p.23)

American creations do not originate from the designer but are rather further developed based on the American perception of what is useful and the social and cultural lifestyles of the American people.

Henry Petroski argues that everything we go through socially, economically, psychologically, and culturally affect the things we make and how we perceive them to be perfect. As evidence to his argument, Petroski describes how utensils, such as spoons and chopsticks came to be in our world. In addition, he touches on the impact certain things have to people and how the evolution of things comes about. He explains that evolution arises from the observation of inventors in the American society. Inventors find a problem with a thing people use, then change it to make it better.

The use of objects as American people know today has evolved over a period of many years and will continue to evolve as American needs change. As Henry Petroski argues in the text, the efficiency and success of an object are based on the need and demand by the targeted audience. This perfectly modifies why things are subject to change. No matter the perception of what a thing can grant Americans, human beings, in general, are never satisfied and will always demand more of what they want. Furthermore, human beings constantly change every day; therefore, an object will never reach its fullest potential and will be replaced by another object as soon as Americans demand more. For example, cell phone companies compete to attract the eyes of Americans and keep up with a fast-paced industry. Every year a new iPhone and Samsung Galaxy comes out because designers implemented something new into the design and applications based on the reactions of the American society. Companies, such as Apple and Samsung, modify their products based on the social and cultural reactions of the American public. Many Americans enjoy having high-quality photos, so Apple in particular attempts to perfect camera quality in every new model. In order for designers to realize that camera quality, phone size, design, etc matter to American users, they have to observe American cultural and social values.

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In today’s society, it is very common to align revolution as a motive towards change and evolution based on an idea inspired by a group of people. However, I agree with the point made here, which expresses scientific revolution as a way to discover new ideas and form new paradigms. Usually, revolution arises from a fault in a society that needs to be fixed, but in this scenario, the author portrays revolution as geared towards new thoughts. It is the conception that new ideologies have to be implemented in society because of change of thought. For example, every year laptops and cell phones are updated with new apps, tools, and better quality photos. Engineers focus on new ideas to make the product attract members of society. If they focused on older ideologies and did not pay attention to change in society, then the product would fail. 

In my personal response, I also noted that the author’s use of an analogy between scientific and political revolutions made the reading more comprehensible. I thought about our political system and the scientific system and noticed how different they were as well as similar. Our politics are shared with the public every day whether that be on social media or the news channel. Politics are publicized much more than science. After giving much thought, I understand why this person poses the question about Newton’s laws. I believe members of society feel they have more of an impact and opinion on politics than in science. Politics are easier to manipulate and easier to understand. Maybe this is why paradigms are so hard to create in science and a scientific revolution even harder to start. 

The Structure of Scientific Revolution

In the words of Thomas S. Kuhn, “A scientific revolution is a non cumulative developmental episode in which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible new one.” The word revolution has now become colloquial, as people use it interchangeably with progression and change. However, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, written by Thomas S. Kuhn, specifically expresses how scientific revolution does not build upon previous ideas, but rather expedites the creation of a completely new idea. Kuhn uses political revolution as an analogy to compare the similar characteristics of scientific revolution. From that analogy, I was able to interpret how scientific revolution shaped our politics, ideas, and decision-making processes.

Further expanding upon the political revolution analogy, I came to find how scientific and political revolutions share the notion that preexistent ideologies and methods proved to be inadequate for society, and thus, new thought was necessary. It was striking for me to see how the previous paradigms were suddenly rejected, and now ‘competing camps and parties’ formed to either revitalize or destroy the previous paradigm. Once this occurs, political recourse is unattainable due to the nuances of the new paradigms. The end result is a new set of ideas (agreed upon, or not), and the older ways are given less attention, so to speak.

The most intriguing aspect of this reading, however, was the notion that assimilation, or a complete shift, in thinking was necessary for scientific revolution to be complete. Kuhn explained that a mass amount of people needed to improve in the new paradigm and have it commonly accepted by society to deem it as a revolution. But then the question arises: Do we really need public approval to verify a revolution in scientific knowledge? The political analogy and other analysis primarily suggests that the public is crucial in the verification of scientific revolution. But if Newton’s laws of physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity were never accepted by the public, would they be considered irrelevant despite their importance today? Fortunately, Kuhn touches on this as he talks about the perpetual movement of human thought around the world. Once something new is discovered, all ideas change, either leaving behind the previous paradigm, or acknowledging its importance and moving on. Nonetheless, this reading has shown how diction and the simple concept of change can affect human understanding and begin a global revolution.

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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

The reading, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” offers a different way to think about how revolutions come about. In this case, the author poses the question, “why should a change of paradigm be called a revolution? (pg. 92).” To answer this question the author made use of an analogy in order to compare scientific revolutions to political revolutions, which I thought was interesting. For example, Kuhn argues that political institutions are structured to avoid change and block problems from being solved within that environment. This ultimately leads to a reconstruction period, in which “competing camps or parties” are formed. Then Kuhn discusses the scientific revolution in order to prove that paradigms are debated in small scientific groups. These groups unite to discuss existing paradigms that are not functioning in a way that science can be explored. If science cannot be explored, then that paradigm needs to be replaced with a new one.

By learning about the similarities between science and politics in this reading, it has made me more aware of the institutions around me. In today’s society, revolution is seen as an elusive idea. In school, we learn about the French Revolution and Scientific Revolution; however, the revolutions were never described in much detail. The reading opened my eyes to how a revolution starts based on a shift in paradigms and addition of new knowledge. A recurring question I thought Kuhn answered was in the reading was whether or not new ideas reject an already existing paradigm. Walking away from the reading, I know that a newly discovered idea may add to or refute other ideas, while possibly changing an already existing paradigm or making it more evident. Therefore, this can make a paradigm easier to understand. For example, when details of an already existing paradigm are vague, then more research is conducted.

Overall, I felt this reading was relevant to the past, present, and future. It is important to understand how paradigms affect scientific revolution or revolution in general. I believe the author wanted the reader to walk away with understanding this aspect of science and politics, while also understanding that nature will not always necessarily fit a paradigm.

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I agree with the first point made, that the reading focused mainly on chemistry topics. I believe the writer did this to get the reader to recognize the similarities between different science fields including chemistry, physics, and biology. In addition, I agree that the purpose of the piece was to convey how laws represent nature and can change depending on the circumstances. Lastly, I felt the same way as Bethany when the author discussed how changing phases from a gas, liquid, and solid can occur. There were many realizations in the reading including blowing on soup and the appearance of bubbles. After getting the background knowledge in the reading, everything else began to make sense when connecting the dots. As Bethany and the author of “Six Easy Pieces” mentioned, everything is made of atoms and they are the building blocks for concluding further knowledge.

Six Easy Pieces

When first starting this piece on physics, I was surprised by the topics of the piece.  The piece mainly focused on the topics that I thought and maybe other people thought would be focused in a chemistry piece.  Though the writing may have focused on the topic revolving chemistry and physics, the paper used the concepts to prove a point.  The author was trying to show that laws are the things that summarize our knowledge.  Throughout the writing, the author presented many points that supported this accusation.  Additionally, Feynman discussed that the laws of nature are approximate. He explains the law of “mass [being] constant, independent of speed” and how it was later proven wrong.  At certain occurrences, the law would be correct, but when the masses were at higher speeds, the law became off and it was as accurate as before.  Later on in the piece, the author talks about matter and how it is made up of atoms; one of the most well know pieces of information in science.  He talks about what happens with the change of temperature.  By increasing the temperature the particles fly apart and when the temperature is lowered the molecules become closer together.  One interesting thing discussed in this part is that when gas is compressed the temperature increases.  I never realized that the compression of gas would lead to a higher temperature because the compression would lead to more collisions of the molecules.  The author also had an interesting way of describing melting.  He described it by saying that the molecules “vibrate with greater and greater amplitude, until they shake themselves out of place.” I never thought of the molecules vibrating that much and this really helped me visualize the process of melting in a molecular level.  Another thing that opened my eyes to a phenomenon, was when the author discussed why your soup cools down when you blow on it.  Feynman said that when you blow on soup it maintains a continuous preponderance in the number evaporating, thus cooling the soup.  I also, never thought about how bubbles in water is just air dissolved in it.  Another cool thing I read was about how people get flames.  The heat becomes a hot gas and the gas can be so enormous that it generates light and that is the flames of the fire.  Lastly, at the conclusion of the piece, the author focused on how animals and atoms do the same things and that “there is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.”  The author wanted you to remember that everything is made of atoms, so the basic laws of physics can be applied to everything.  Overall, I really enjoyed this piece and liked how the author presented the information with many specific examples.  

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Clear as Mud Discussion

After reading “Clear as Mud” and having a class discussion, I have learned about how people’s experiences shape their perception and perspective. The experiences are usually based on how they grow up, their culture, location, and more. Therefore, I believe engineers or high-level graduates should try to make their writing less complex and complicated; however, it will not necessarily make it easy for everyone to read. No matter what context, words, or grammatical rules included, there will always be someone who will not understand.

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Six Easy Pieces

The reading, “Six Easy Pieces,” opened my eyes to the simplicity of how different types of science, including physics, biology, and chemistry, derive the standard laws. In the first part of the reading, Matter is made of atoms, Richard Feynman poses a question asking if, “only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?” I thought this was a great introductory question because it prepared the reader to read further for the answer and ponder the possibilities. After I finished the reading I understood why Feynman’s response to the question was about atoms. I learned that atoms are the foundation in science and the basis to discover the rest of science. By knowing about the function and purpose of an atom, one can experiment and conclude other laws in science. For example, Feynman explains how atoms lead to the structure of molecules, compounds, and different forms of solids, liquids, and gases.

The structure of the reading included an introduction and three main chapters. I feel Feynman’s structure of the reading was easy to follow because it connected factual information about atoms to help the reader understand the connections between characteristics of atoms in matter. In addition, the reading gradually increased in difficulty of content, which allowed the reader to learn about the concepts and then how to apply them in everyday life. I found it helpful to have the diagrams throughout the reading to refer to because it helped me visualize what was being discussed in the reading. For example, I know the composition of steam is made of scattered atoms because of the hot temperatures and fast movement. I also know that ice is the opposite, with an arranged structure. However, without the 1-4 diagram to portray the structure of ice, it would have been hard for me to understand why ice shrinks when it melts. Therefore, I learned that the gaps in the structural model of ice gradually disappears as it melts because the atoms start to get closer, filling in the gaps.

Overall, I felt this reading was structured in an easy way for a beginner physicist or any other aspiring scientist to understand. I believe the author wanted the reader to walk away with giving them the backbone to science: atoms. My favorite part of the reading is at the end when Feynman poses multiple questions to lead the reader in a direction to continue thinking about other possibilities in the world.

Christal