THE WAY OF

SCIENCE
CHAPTER 1

Science: Observing and understanding the

natural world
Reasons for learning science:
expanded awareness of the universe.
problems of modern society and their solutions.
understanding everyday technology.

Physics: The study of universal phenomena

 What is Physics?

"Physics" could best be described as the study of

(a) matter.
(b) atoms in motion.
(c) the absolute, or certain, truths about the natural world.
(d) the general principles underlying natural phenomena.
(e) the application of science to the needs of human beings.

le
p
m
Exa

Observing
The Night
Sky

Various
theories on
astronomy

??
Astronomy: Study of stars and other
objects in space

How does science operate?

Scientific method:
Observe phenomena in nature.
Hypothesis on why they behave the way they do.
Test the hypothesis to see if it works.
If the hypothesis works, it is promoted to theory.
A theory should predict phenomena that have

not been observed yet.

How does science operate?

Observation

-OBSERVATIONS: Data-gathering
-MEASUREMENT: Quantitative observation
Hypothesis
Test the hypothesis

EXPERIMENT: Observation designed and controlled by humans.

Non- EXPERIMENT

Theory: Confirmed framework of ideas that explains or unifies a

group of observations

Model: Theory that can be visualized

ANCIENT GREEK THEORIES

Babylonians and Egyptians
(3000BC)
Knew about starts, sun,
moon, and 5 planets.
Greeks (500BC)
Each sphere rotates at a
uniform rate around Earth,
roughly once a day.
Pythagoras
Mathematics

Aristotle (200 years later)

Earth is spherical
Ships sink little by little below the horizon

 Careful observations show that Mars generally

moves from East to West at a variable rate and

occasionally changes direction Retrograde
motion

Aristarchus theory:
Sun at Center of Universe dismissed
because:
Earth is not the center of Universe?
Absurd that Earth moves.? (Too big + Birds
and clouds should be left behind)

 Epicycle theory:

Mars has a deferent and an

epicycle.
Ptolemy:
He introduced 2 new ideas:
Earth is displaced slightly from the center

of the deferent.
The center of the epicycle moves with
unchanging speed, as seen from the
equant.

COPERNICUS THEORY
1473-1543
He looked at Earth as
an object similar to
other objects in space.
Like
Pythagoras, he
believed that motions
were both circular and
uniform epicycle theory
too complex.
A
sun-centered
(heliocentric)
universe

KEPLERS THEORY
After

20
years
of
observations, he found
that neither Ptolemy
nor Copernicus was
right.
Each planet moves in a
sun-focused ellipse: An
ellipse having the sun
at one of its two
focuses

Keplers First Law:

The orbital paths of the planets are elliptical (not
circular) with the Sun at one focus.

What is an ellipse?

Perihelion: point of closest approach

Aphelion: point at the greatest distance from the sun

Keplers Second Law:

An imaginary line connecting the Sun to any
planet sweeps out equal areas of the ellipse in
equal intervals of time.

SCIENCE:
DIALOGUE BETWEEN
NATURE AND MIND
The
dynamic
interplay
between
observations
and
theories:

Some of the things we know today

Rejection of the geocentric illusion that Earth
is at the center of the universe
The sun is a star
There are 400 billion visible aggregation of
stars
Each of the giant aggregation of stars is
called a galaxy
Ours is the Milky way

Relative Sizes of the Sun and the planets:

An astronomical unit the average distance

between Earth and the Sun: 149,600,000 km.