Jwallacephysics's Blog

Analyzing Pro Western Culture Sites

Johnny — Fri, 07 May 2010 05:38:52 +0000

1) This website (and many other people actually) asserts that western culture is the only viable cultural structure available. It’s mission is to try and spread knowledge and acceptance of western culture to “uncivilized” cultures-basically any other culture besides Western culture… They also call their culture “advanced culture”, as they believe it is the culture that best promotes growth and development. “In other words, Western culture is humanities culture.” The website also states that because people from some countries with little to no western influence die earlier than people in westernized countries, that culture is somehow the definite cause to this.

To my mind the statements the people running this website are making are very ego driven, in that they believe only their culture can be good in everything that it does. And although I have been raised in this western culture, I really firmly believe that my world view is not influenced by the culture I find myself dwelling in today. If I were to explain my personal world view to the people running this website then I think I would be baragged with ignorant comments about how wrong I am. I am not religious, in the sense that I let other people define my spirituality for me. Rather I recognize that the “answers” are not outside, somewhere in this third dimensional reality waiting to be found but instead are inside my soul; knowing this, through practices like meditation I can simply just be. And when that happens the cultural overcoat that seems to drape over me at points during the day simply floats away. I hate to keep talking about myself this way but I think I’m very perceptive in that I recognize when my culture speaks through me and for me. And this happens often. I can tell you its slowing down though….

2) Aristotle, Homer, Thales, Galileo, John Locke, and Newton are very important figures to the makers of this website

3) Both the website and the principle notions of Newtonian physics are for science and for thinking with reason and not with only speculation. They both contend that the only viable way to discover “truth” is to test it many many times to see if it is truly reliable. Another similarity is that they both contend that the universe is stable, governed by causality, and that its laws and truths are unchanging, no matter what the circumstance (if only quantum physics could manifest a hand to slap them in the face right now)

OUTLINE

Johnny — Wed, 05 May 2010 16:11:10 +0000

-Main questions I wish to answer for myself and for my presentation: Is our current civilization the only civilization with an advanced understanding of astronomy? If not, then which civilizations had such an understanding? What tools and methods did they use to find this information?

-Answer: Yes, other ancient and even prehistoric civilizations had a very deep understanding of astronomy. The civilizations I will be talking about in order to prove this are the ancient egyptians, the mayans/aztecs, and the Khmer.

Mayans/Aztecs: The ancient mayan culture was based around astronomy. The temples, structures, sculptures, writings, and knowledge they left behind make the point that their spirituality was completely intermeshed with their art, agriculture, and astronomy. The Maya considered many celestial objects to be incredibly significant; for example, they called the milky way the Wakah Chan (Wakah meaning erect, Chan meaning serpent or sky). To them, the milky way was the “world tree”, out of which all life sprang, and on which all souls would walk to the underworld after their death.

The mayan long count calendar epitomizes their incredible astronomical knowledge and understanding. It predicts the very erratic revolutions venus makes in coordination with the earth, solar and lunar eclipses, and even the endings and beginnings of new ages (contrary to popular belief, the mayans didn’t predict that the world would end on December 21, 2012, rather they simply believed that that date would mark the ending of the current age of Aquarius, and possibly lead to a new “golden” age). The mayan calendar has predicted these events for hundreds of years perfectly; it has only made ONE error in 6000 years….

The maya also aligned their temples perfectly to capture the sun on the days of the equinox’s-for example, in Chichen Itza on both of the equinox’s, the sun sets in such a way that a diamondback snake’s form is made by the shadow of the temple. As the day comes to a close, the snake rises higher and higher up to the top of the temple. This happens to numerous other mayan temples as well, and it just goes to show how utterly perfect their astronomical knowledge was (for it is still working thousands of years after it was made)

Egyptian Astronomy: The egyptians were like the mayans in that they displayed their astronomical knowledge in the formation of their temples and structures. For example, although it is a controversial theory, many believe that the pyramids at giza were made to emulate the shape of orions belt. Newly discovered shafts bolster this theory, for their angles point precisely at different stars and constellations; one of the shafts was calculated to have been pointing at Orions belt during the time in which the pyramid was supposed to be created. Also, the sphinx and the giza pyramids were oriented to face exuinoxial phases of the solar cycle and the great temples in the south of egypt (Karnack and the Collosi of Memnon and Abydoss) were both oriented to capture the rays of the sun during the solstices.

Preliminary Physics Project Ideas (not so preliminary now but heres what I was thinking of doing…)

Johnny — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:32:13 +0000

1) I’m thinking that I might want to explore the physics of astronomy for my Final Physics Project. Alternatively, I might choose to learn about other dimensions/”hyperspace” instead.

I’m publishing this late because I had originally done the second stage (final declaration of ones project topic) first, by accident. In the beginning this is what I was thinking about doing though.

FINAL PROJECT TOPIC

Johnny — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 04:55:07 +0000

1) My project topic will be on the physics and implications of Astronomy.

2) I chose this project because ever since I was a kid I’ve been extremely interested in anything that has to do with space, and I feel like one of the things I was meant to do is be an astronomer. Its a very interesting topic for me, thats for sure.

3)I want to share the knowledge I have already acquired about the universe we live in and also knowledge that I will learn in the future. If I could narrow down what I wanted to learn into a couple topics it would be learning more about new technological advances that could/are revolutionizing how we perceive the universe around us, and learning more about exoplanet discovery.

4) I am not sure exactly what I would like to do for the final finished project but it most likely will be an interactive, informative, but also interesting video.

5)http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/extrasolarplanets.php

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/about/techdev.shtml

Oh and of course: http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Physics HW

Johnny — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:08:03 +0000

Angular momentum definitely affects the overall performance of my mousetrap car design. It has an effect on the rotating bar that pulls the string that moves the wheels of the car, and also on the actual wheels of the car. Angular momentum is calculated with the equation L = Iw. In order to maximize the distance traveled by the car, one must maximize this angular momentum. This can most easily be done by increasing the angular velocity, by making the design as efficient as possible.

Questions 2 and 4 due thursday

Johnny — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:18:26 +0000

2) Torque = Lever arm X Force

Torque = (.5m) X (50n) = 25 m/n

4) Angular Momentum = mvr

Angular Momentum = (75 kg)(3 m/s)(2 m)

AM = 450 kg/m/s

Friction force = 450 N

Electric potential energy

Johnny — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:26:22 +0000

-the energy that a particle possesses by virtue of its location is called electric potential energy. If a + particle is close to another + particle and it is released, it will go in the opposite direction and its energy will be then called kinetic energy

-Electric potential is called voltage

-A capacitor stores electric energy in itself. A capacitor is found in nearly all electronic circuits

-Electric potential energy is the amount of energy that can be transformed into kinetic energy by moving a particle to a like charged particle and releasing it

Momentum and Kinetic Energy

Johnny — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:14:17 +0000

Momentum and Kinetic Energy are fundamentally different in that momentum is a vector quantity, while energy is a scalar quantity. For example, 2 objects moving towards each other their combined momentum may cancel or partially cancel, but their kinetic energies can’t cancel. Also, Momentum depends on mass multiplied by velocity, while Kinetic energy depends on 1/2 mass multiplied by velocity SQUARED. It is in these ways that Momentum and Kinetic Energy are conceptually different.

Elastic and Inelastic Collisions

Johnny — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:10:43 +0000

Elastic Collisions: Kinetic energy and momentum are conserved when this kind of collision occurs.

Inelastic Collisions: Kinetic energy isn’t conserved when this kind of collision occurs. However, the total amount of momentum still remains constant.

HW for Thursday

Johnny — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:35:16 +0000

When the mass/spring is oscillating, and the spring is as stretched as it can be, then the mass has elastic potential energy because moments after it stops moving, the spring will want to return back to its state of equilibrium and therefore will pull the weight in an upward direction. When it reaches the highest possible position it can reach, it stops for a very short period of time. At this time, the mass has gravitational potential energy due to its position in the earths gravitational field. This potential energy then makes the mass accelerate downwards. This cycle continues until all of the energy contained in the mass/spring combo is absorbed by the object holding it, and by air resistance.