Week 1 Slides Science and History PDF

Warning: We will be going fast!!!
History
Telescopes
Planets
Stars
Galaxies
Cosmology
It doesnt matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesnt

matter how smart you are. If it doesnt agree with experiment,
its wrong.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you
are the easiest person to fool.
Richard Feymann, Nobel prize winner in physics.
It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains

fall out.
Carl Sagan, astronomer, creator of the Cosmos TV series.
Vision
Science starts
with curiosity
...something
that is born in
all of us
The starting
point is to find
patterns in the
natural world
The medieval view

- Aristotle
The natural view

- Leonardo
Sketches of the Moon
The Sounds of Space
Keplers Harmony
The Sounds of Space
Big Bang Acoustics

Mark Whittle, UVa
Discovery
Patterns in Nature
Numerical Sequence
Alternating Red/Black
Match Color or Number
Red on Even, Black on Odd
The Periodic Table
Mendeleev and the Material World
Science Made Stupid (1985) Tom Weller
Invention or discovery?
Michaelangelo
Imagination
Picasso
Imagining the Impossible
Nancarrow Study
#21 (1960)
Imagining other worlds
Imagining orbits
Imagining Worm Holes
Contact (1997)
Imagining Worm Holes
Contact (1997)
Reasoning
Failures of Logic
Deduction combines
statements or premises
and combines them to
reach a conclusion.
The conclusion is valid
only if the premises are
justified and the logical
construction is correct.
Deduction preserves
truth but doesnt
always expand
knowledge.
i.e. symbolic logic,
arithmetic, algebra
2+2=4
DEDUCTION
Induction involves a
generalization from a
limited amount of
data to a broad
conclusion.
Induction cannot yield
certainty, but backed
by a lot of data, gives
reliable conclusions.
Induction can expand
knowledge so is a
basic tool of science.
i.e. data is always finite
so theories are always
subject to verification.
DEDUCTION
INDUCTION
Uncertainty
Estimation
Astronomers often use estimation or order of magnitude
calculations in their work. Often it is not possible, or even
necessary, to derive very accurate numbers. And this is
particularly true in astronomy where the objects under
consideration are usually extremely faint and very remote.
X 10 Accuracy
For most exploratory

calculations
X 2 Accuracy
For most numbers in

cosmology
10% Accuracy
For the best-measured

parameters
Science Limitations
Uncertainty, imprecision, and error arise three different ways:
CONCEPTUAL
Making a false premise, confusing

correlation with causation, inferring a
pattern where none is present
MACROSCOPIC
There is no such thing as perfect data.

Every data set is limited and every
instrument has limitations
MICROSCOPIC
Heisenbergs uncertainty principle sets

a fundamental limit to precision for
measurement of particle position and
velocity, or energy and time
Quantum Universe
Quantum Universe
Cause and Effect

It would be difficult to make sense of the world if we did not believe
in cause and effect, that things do not happen without a reason.
Determinism
On the other hand, the universe does not work like a machine or like
clockwork, where everything is perfectly and completely predictable.
Correlation
X
No correlation?
Linear correlation?
Non-linear correlation?
Y
Causation
Correlation need not imply causation; underlying variable is time
THE COIN
Heads
Both
Neither
Tails
Some events are individually unpredictable, but

the statistical average is still very well determined
The roll of a single die

is unpredictable; each
outcome has 1/6 odds
of occurring each time
It is impossible to predict
when any single atom will
undergo radioactive decay
Gathering a large number of random events, the

average properties of the system become clear
A pair of dice rolled many

times will give a smooth
distribution of outcomes
With a large number of

radioactive atoms, half
of them will decay in a
particular time interval
Evidence
Evidence is:
based on data
reproducible
quantitative
not subjective
never perfect
The Importance of Evidence

There is no science without evidence
All assertions must be supported by data
Every claim in science is subject to verification
Science is data-driven, so progress is made by:

1. Gathering more data
2. Repeating the experiment

3. Someone else repeating the experiment
GOOD!
BETTER!!
BEST!!!
Here are observations

of Saturn made in the
first 50 years after the
telescopes invention
(from 1610 to 1660).
Which one shows
the way Saturn
really looks?
Science progresses at
the limit of observation.
Scientists always want
more and better data.
All observations are

uncertain at some level,
due to limitations in the
measuring apparatus.
This is not really like an
error, as in a mistake.
Where is the star
really on the sky?
Multiple measurements
are needed to define
the uncertainty. Taking
more data gives a more
reliable estimate and a
measure of uncertainty.
EXPLORATION:
1 MILLION MILES
REMOTE SENSING:
1 BILLION MILES
FREE SAMPLES:
10 BILLION MILES
For 99.999999999999999999999999999% of the universe,

including all stars and all galaxies, the evidence is indirect.
Scientific Method
Good Science
Science seeks robust explanations for observed
phenomena that rely solely on natural causes.
Science progresses by creating and testing models
of nature that explain the observations as simply
or as efficiently as possible.
Occams Razor (there may be more than one
explanation for set of data, choose the simplest)
A scientific model must make testable predictions
that may force us to revise or abandon the model.
Plus, the role of luck and persistence: Science is a
very human (so sometimes flawed) enterprise!
Theory
: a model which survives repeated testing
THE ROLE OF THEORY

Theory of Too Much
Is
Current Theory
Theory of Everything
Isnt
The Truth is Out There
X-Files Pilot (1997)
The Truth is Out There
X-Files Pilot (1997)
A Major Problem:
Science literacy is
low, around 10%,
and pop culture is
awash in all kinds
of pseudoscience,
magical thinking,
superstition, and
supernatural or
irrational belief
systems.
Information
Bits of Information
Suppose you have a
piece of paper and
you want know
where the dot is.
With factors of two,
folding the paper
over and over, or
dividing into areas
two times smaller,
you will home in on
the dots location.
No fold, 1 piece, dot could be

anywhere on the paper.
One fold, 2 pieces, dot is in

top half of the paper.
Two folds, 4 pieces, dot is

in top right quadrant.
Three folds, 8 pieces, dot is in

the top right corner.
Four folds, 16 pieces, dot is

left of top right corner.
Five folds, 32 pieces, dot is 1

down, 1 left of the corner.
EACH NEW STEP IS A BIT OF INFORMATION
Digital Information
A binary digit, or bit of information is the
simplest division to make: on/off, loud/soft,
black/white, hot/cold, or done in math, 1/0.
As the number of division increases,
more bits, the information improves.
The math uses a
base 2, or binary
counting system.
Why do we do this? The basis of modern
electronics is the rapid switching on and
off of current, a billion times per second.
Measuring Information
KB = 103 bytes
MB = 106 bytes
GB = 109 bytes
TB = 1012 bytes
PB = 1015 bytes
EB = 1018 bytes
1 kilobyte (KB)
1 megabyte (MB)
1 gigabyte (GB)
1 terabyte (TB)
10 terabytes
1 petabyte (PB)
100 petabytes
1 exabyte (EB)
10 exabytes
(1 byte = 8 bits)
One type-written page

A short novel
Pickup truck of books
50,000 trees to paper
U.S Library of Congress
All research libraries
All printed material
All the new info in 2010
All words ever spoken
How Much Information?

1 bit
2 bits
3 bits
4 bit
10 bits
20 bits
60 bits
(21)
(22)
(23)
(24)
50% precision
25% precision
13% precision
6% precision
2 items
4 items
8 items
16 items
(210) 0.1% precision

(220) 0.0001% precision
1024 items
1,000,000 items
(260) 10-18% precision
1021 items
A factor of 10 in scale is 1/log2 = 3.3 bits of information. Just 60

bits of information or yes/no decisions can specify the position
of the dot on the paper down to the level of a single cellulose
molecule or count the stars in 60 billion galaxies in the cosmos.
The History of Information
BITS
Early life:
0.01 bits/yr
1018
1014
Humans:
1 bit/yr
1010
Books:
1013 bits/yr
106
Digital:
1019 bits/yr
102
4.6 billion
3.5 billion
5000 yrs
Now
Moores law and its network bandwidth equivalent are at

about 1 Gigabit (109) per second, but project to 1 Petabit
(1015) per second in 2030, the capacity of the human brain.
WHAT IS AND ISNT
Imaginable
Possible
Is
Isnt
Ancient Astronomy
2005 Pearson Education Inc.,

publishing as Addison-Wesley
The Role of Astronomy

What did ancient civilizations use astronomy for?
daily timekeeping
tracking the seasons and calendar

monitoring lunar cycles
monitoring planets and stars
predicting eclipses
and much more
The sky was a map, a clock , a

calendar, and a book of stories
Gibbon bone, Central Africa, 35,000 B.C.
We are anatomically and

developmentally modern
since ~38,000 years ago.
The very oldest human
artifacts are devices for
keeping a lunar calendar.
Cave paintings, Lascaux, 15,000 B.C.

Sky Observations in a Year

1 Patterns in the Sky
Motions in the Sky
2 The Circling Sky
day
> the rotation of the Earth about its axis
3 The Reason for Seasons
year
> the Earths orbit around the Sun
4 Precession of the Earths Axis

> the wobbling of Earths axis
5 The Moon, Our Constant Companion
month
> the Moons orbit around the Earth
6 The Ancient Mystery of the Planets

2005
Pearson
Education
Inc.,
> the various planets
orbits
around
the
Sun
week

France: Cave paintings from 18,000 B.C. may suggest

knowledge of lunar phases, helpful in hunting (29 dots)

Ancient people of central Africa (6500 B.C.)

could predict the seasons from the orientation
of the crescent moon near the western horizon

Egyptian obelisk: shadows tell time of day/year.

England: Stonehenge (completed around 1550 B.C.)

Stonehenge
Stonehenge
England: Stonehenge (completed around 1550 B.C.)

Germany: Nebra sky disk, high status object (1600 B.C.)
Yucatan, Mexico: Mayan Observatory at Chichen Itza (~800 A.D.)

The serpent at Chichen Itza

United States: Sun Dagger marks solstice/equinox (~1000 A.D.)

South Pacific: Polynesians were skilled in art of celestial navigation

"On the Jisi

day, the 7th day
of the month, a
big new star
appeared in the
company of the
Ho star."
"On the Xinwei day the
new star dwindled."
Bone or tortoise shell inscription from the 14th century BC.
China: Earliest known records of supernova explosions (1400 B.C.)

The Antikythera Mechanism
Found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece in 1900, this has

been labeled the Mona Lisa of mechanical artifacts. It dates
back 2100 years and is an early version of an analog computer.
The device is made of brass,

had 76 gears, predicted Sun,
Moon and planet positions,
and eclipses, and could track
non-linear sky motion. It was
probably inspired by a design
handed down by Archimedes.
Engineering in 100 B.C.
Engineering in 100 B.C.
Calendars
Can you answer all these questions about

timekeeping and features of the calendar?
Why does the year begin on January 1?
Why are there 7 days in a week?
Where do the names of the days come from?
Why are there 24 hours in a day?
Why are there 60 minutes in an hour?
Why is February the only short month?
Why do analog clocks go clockwise?
Why do Arab flags include a crescent Moon?
What is the origin of Halloween and April Fools?
Why are month lengths hard to remember?
Where do the last four
month
names come from?
2005 Pearson
Education Inc.,
Days of week were named for Sun, Moon, and visible planets

Our Modern Calendar

Time
Frame
Jan
Feb
Mar Apr
May Jun
Jul
Aug Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Janus
Februa
Martius
Aprilus
Maius
Junius
Quintils
Sextilus
Septum
Octo
Nove
Decem
(doors)
(purify)
(war)
(beauty
(spring)
(women
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
31
30
31
30
31
30
30
31
30
30
Romulus
(7th BC)
Pompilus
(6th BC)
Priscus
(6th BC)
Caesar
(44 BC)
Augustus
(8 BC)
Total
Days
Gods
& #s
304
25
25
29
28
31
29
31
29
31
29
29
31
29
29
355
31
29
31
30
31
30
31
30
31
30
31
30
365
354
July
31
28
31
30
31
30
31
Leap year
31
August

30
31
30
31
365
Leap year
Rational
Calendar
(Napoleon)
Greek Science
Differing views on life in the universe:
There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world
of ours we must believe that in all worlds there are living
creatures and plants and other things we see in this world.
Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) Letter to Herodotus
The world must be unique There cannot be several worlds.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) de Caelo
The Birth of Science
The Birth of Science
The Ancient Greeks, with a strong civic

society yet no technology, came up with:
Philosophy, logic, the scientific method
Systems of government, law, the city state

New ideas in theater, music, and medicine
Geometry, algebra, infinity, irrational numbers

Ideas of the round Earth, heliocentric universe
IMPRESSIVE
Our mathematical and scientific heritage originated with

the civilizations of the Middle East

Why does modern science trace its roots to

the ancient Greeks?
Greeks were the first
people known to make
models of nature.
They tried to explain the
patterns in nature without
resorting to myth or the
supernatural.
They applied math and
logic to explanations of
natural phenomena
Greek geocentric model (c. 400 B.C.)
Special Topic: Eratosthenes measures the Earth (~240 B.C.)

Measurements:
Syene to Alexandria
distance 5000 stadia
angle = 7
Calculate circumference of Earth:

7/360 (circum. Earth) = 5000 stadia
circum. Earth = 5000 360/7 stadia 250,000 stadia
Compare to modern value ( 40,100 km):

Greek stadium 1/6 km 250,000 stadia 42,000 km
How did the Greeks explain planetary motion?

Underpinnings of the
Greek geocentric model:
Plato
Earth at the center of the universe

Heavens must be perfect : objects
moving on perfect spheres or along
perfect circles (cf. Pythagoras)
Aristotle
But this made it difficult to explain the

apparent retrograde motion of planets
For example: Over a period of 10 weeks in 2003, Mars appeared

to stop, back up, then go forward again relative to the fixed stars.
The most sophisticated

geocentric model was
that of Ptolemy (A.D.
100-170) called the
Ptolemaic model:
Sufficiently accurate to
remain in use for 1,500
years. But needed up to
47 offset spheres just to
explain motions of only
7 celestial objects!
Ptolemy
Arabic translation of
Ptolemys work named
Almagest (the greatest
compilation)
Copernican Revolution
Copernicus (1473-1543)
Proposed the Sun-centered model

(published on his death in 1543)
Used model to determine layout of
solar system (planetary distances
in Earth-Sun units, or A.U.)
But . . .
The model was no more accurate
than Ptolemaic model in predicting
planetary positions, because it still
used perfect circles.

Copernicus Heliocentric Model

Sun is at the center
Earth orbits like any

other planet
Inferior planet orbits
are smaller
Retrograde motion
occurs when we lap
Mars and all the other
superior or outer
planets
But, the stars must be very far away to see no

stellar parallax, plus, we feel no rapid motion!

Why was replacing this
...with this so revolutionary?
In part, because moving the Earth from the center of

creation challenged
culture, religion, and our self-image.
Why was the appearance of stars (brightness and parallax) such a key
distinction between the geocentric and heliocentric models?
In the geocentric model the distance to all stars is constant, so they never
change their brightness or relative positions (parallax), but in the heliocentric
model this is only true if thestars
are much
further
away than all the planets.
2005 Pearson
Education
Inc.,

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

Compiled the most accurate (one
arcminute) naked eye measurements
ever made of planetary positions.
Still could not detect stellar parallax,
and thus still thought Earth must be at
center of solar system (but recognized
that other planets go around Sun)
Hired Kepler, who used his cumulative
observations to discover the truth about
planetary motion (orbits are elliptical).
Kepler
Kepler first tried to match Tychos
observations with circular orbits
But an 8 arcminute (1/4 of the Moons

apparent size on the sky) discrepancy
led him eventually to ellipses
Johannes Kepler
(1571-1630)
If I had believed that we could have

ignored these eight minutes [of arc],
I would have patched up my
hypothesis accordingly. But, since it
was not permissible to ignore, those
eight minutes pointed the road to a
complete
reformation
in astronomy.
2005
Pearson Education
Inc.,
Keplers First Law
Keplers Second Law
Keplers Third Law
Revolving and Attracting
Revolving and Attracting
Galileo
Galileo (1564-1642) is considered the
first modern experimental scientist. He
overcame several major objections to
the Copernican view. Three objections
rooted in the Aristotelian view were:
1. Earth could not be moving because
objects in air would be left behind.
2. Non-circular orbits are not perfect
as the heavens should be.
3. If Earth were really orbiting Sun,
wed detect stellar parallax, or the
seasonal shift in star positions.
Galileo
Galileo
Overcoming the first objection (nature of motion):

Galileos experiments showed that objects in air would
stay with a moving Earth, the concept of inertia.
Aristotle thought that all objects naturally come to rest.

Galileo showed that objects will stay in motion unless a force
acts to slow them down (Newtons first law of motion).

Gravitational Acceleration
Gravitational Acceleration
Overcoming the second objection (heavenly perfection):
Tychos observations of comet and

supernova already challenged this idea.
Using his telescope, Galileo saw:
sunspots on Sun (imperfections.)
mountains and valleys on the

Moon (proving it is not a perfect
sphere, but is geological).
removing the celestial/terrestrial
distinction motives the concept of
many worlds.
Galileo also saw four

moons orbiting Jupiter,
proving that not every
object orbits the Earth

Overcoming the third objection (parallax):
Tycho thought he had measured stellar distances, so

lack of parallax seemed to rule out an orbiting Earth.
Galileo showed stars must be much farther than
Tycho thought in part by using his telescope to see
the Milky Way is made of countless individual stars.
If stars were much farther away, then the lack of
detectable parallax was no longer so troubling.

The Catholic Church ordered

Galileo to recant his claim
that the Earth orbits the Sun
in 1633. He died under house
arrest just outside Florence.
His book on the subject was
removed from the Churchs
index of banned books in
1824. By then astronomy had
shifted to northern Europe.
Galileo Galilei was formally
vindicated by the Church in
1992. A bit, ahem, late.
Galileo Galilei


Imagining space travel
Imagining life on other worlds
Newton (1661)
Keplers Somnium (1630)
Shoulders of Giants
Shoulders of Giants
The Copernican Revolution
The history of astronomy displaces us from cosmic importance
People and Progress
People and Progress
Awareness of the Universe
Awareness of the Universe
Powers of Ten
Cosmic Voyage (1996)
Powers of Ten
Cosmic Voyage (1996)

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Warning: We will be going fast!!!

It doesnt matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesnt

Richard Feymann, Nobel prize winner in physics.

It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains

The medieval view

The natural view

Sketches of the Moon

The Sounds of Space

The Sounds of Space

Big Bang Acoustics

Match Color or Number

Red on Even, Black on Odd

The Periodic Table

Mendeleev and the Material World

Science Made Stupid (1985) Tom Weller

Imagining the Impossible

Imagining other worlds

Imagining Worm Holes

Imagining Worm Holes

For most exploratory

For most numbers in

For the best-measured

Making a false premise, confusing

There is no such thing as perfect data.

Heisenbergs uncertainty principle sets

Cause and Effect

Correlation need not imply causation; underlying variable is time

Some events are individually unpredictable, but

The roll of a single die

Gathering a large number of random events, the

A pair of dice rolled many

With a large number of

The Importance of Evidence

Science is data-driven, so progress is made by:

2. Repeating the experiment

Here are observations

All observations are

For 99.999999999999999999999999999% of the universe,

: a model which survives repeated testing

THE ROLE OF THEORY

The Truth is Out There

X-Files Pilot (1997)

The Truth is Out There

X-Files Pilot (1997)

No fold, 1 piece, dot could be

One fold, 2 pieces, dot is in

Two folds, 4 pieces, dot is

Three folds, 8 pieces, dot is in

Four folds, 16 pieces, dot is

Five folds, 32 pieces, dot is 1

EACH NEW STEP IS A BIT OF INFORMATION

One type-written page

How Much Information?

(210) 0.1% precision

(260) 10-18% precision

A factor of 10 in scale is 1/log2 = 3.3 bits of information. Just 60

The History of Information

Moores law and its network bandwidth equivalent are at

WHAT IS AND ISNT

2005 Pearson Education Inc.,

The Role of Astronomy

tracking the seasons and calendar

The sky was a map, a clock , a