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Course: General Science (6404)

Assignment 1

Q.1 How science and technology affect each other? Also elaborate effect of science and
technology on society.

Science and technology affect each other

Science, technology and innovation each represent a successively larger category of

activities which are highly interdependent but distinct. Science contributes to technology in
at least six ways:

(1)new knowledge which serves as a direct source of ideas for new technological
possibilities;

(2) source of tools and techniques for more efficient engineering design and a knowledge
base for evaluation of feasibility of designs;

(3) research instrumentation, laboratory techniques and analytical methods used in

research that eventually find their way into design or industrial practices, often through
intermediate disciplines;

(4) practice of research as a source for development and assimilation of new human skills
and capabilities eventually useful for technology;

(5) creation of a knowledge base that becomes increasingly important in the assessment of
technology in terms of its wider social and environmental impacts;

(6) knowledge base that enables more efficient strategies of applied research, development,
and refinement of new technologies.

Middle school students struggle with differentiating between science and technology.
"Engineers, architects, and others who engage in design and technology use scientific
knowledge to solve practical problems. They also usually have to take human values and
limitations into account."

Effect of science and technology on society

Our societies are dominated and even 'driven' by ideas and products from science and
technology (S&T) and it is very likely that the influence of science and technology on our
lives will continue to increase in the years to come. Scientific and technological knowledge,
skills and artefacts 'invade' all realms of life in modern society: the workplace and the public
sphere are increasingly dependent on new as well as upon more established technologies.
So, too, are the private sphere and our leisure time. Scientific and technological knowledge
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and skills are crucial for most of our actions and decisions, as workers, as voters, as
consumers, etc. Meaningful and independent participation in modern democracies assumes
an ability to judge the evidence and arguments associated with the many socio-scientific
issues that appear on the political agenda.

In short, modern societies need people with scientific and technological qualifications at the
highest level as well as a general public which has a broad understanding of the contents
and methods of science and technology, coupled with an insight into their role as social
forces that shape the future. Science and technology are major cultural products of human
history, and all citizens, independently of their occupational 'needs', should be acquainted
with them as elements of human culture. While science and technology are obviously
important for economic well-being, they must also seen from the perspective of a broadly
based liberal education

One might expect the increasing significance of science and technology to be accompanied
by a parallel growth in interest in these subjects and in an understanding of basic scientific
ideas and ways of thinking. This does, however, not seem to be the case, especially in the
more developed countries of Europe and the OECD.

The evidence for such claims is in part based on 'hard facts' (educational statistics relating to
subject choice in schools, enrolment in tertiary education etc.), in part on recent large–scale
comparative studies like TIMSS and PISA (described later in this chapter) and in part on
research into, and analysis of, contemporary social trends. The situation is briefly described
and analysed below.

Challenges and perspectives

Falling enrolment, increasing gender gap?

In many countries, recruitment to scientific and technological studies is falling, or at least

not developing as fast as expected or planned for. This lack of interest in science often
manifests itself at school level at the age where curricular choices are made. In many
countries, there is a noticeable decrease in the numbers of students choosing (some of) the
sciences. The trend is consolidated in admissions to tertiary education. A similar trend
occurs in some areas of engineering and technology studies. It should, however, be noted
that there are large (and interesting) differences between the various European countries
and between the different disciplines within science and technology. The fall in recruitment
has been particularly marked in physics and mathematics.

In many countries, there is also a growing gender gap in the choice of scientific and
technological subjects at both school and tertiary level. Many countries have had a long
period of steady growth in female participation in traditionally male fields of study, but this
positive trend seems now to have been broken in some countries. It is a paradox that the
break is most marked in some of the Nordic countries, where gender equity has been a
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prime educational aim for decades. For example, while the Nordic countries come out on
top of all the countries in the world on the Gender Empowerment Measure, an indicator
developed by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP 2001), the same countries
have very low female participation rates in science- and technology-related occupations and
studies.

Concern about unsatisfactory enrolment in science and technology is voiced by many

interest groups. Industrial leaders are worried about the recruitment of a qualified work
force. Universities and research institutions are anxious about the recruitment of new
researchers, and education authorities are worried about the already visible lack of qualified
teachers of the scientific and technological subjects. In some countries, the difficulty of
recruiting sufficient numbers of new entrants to the teaching profession has become a
matter of national concern, especially when the level of recruitment does not even allow for
the replacement of those who are retiring. This concern is often based on comprehensive
appraisals of the education and labour markets.

The concern is not confined to numbers. There is also a more or less identifiable fall in
the quality of the newcomers. A lower quality may, of course, be a consequence of the fact
that very few candidates compete for places at institutions where the entrance
qualifications were previously very high. Many institutions of higher education are unable to
fill their places in science and technology with students of a satisfactory quality.

The problems in recruitment are revealed by a range of objective and uncontroversial

educational statistics. Cross-national data on a range of issues are now collected and
published by UNESCO, the OECD, the European Union and other organisations, and the
development of common descriptors and criteria has made its possible to make
comparisons between different countries and regions. Evidence about pupils' achievements,
quality, interests etc. is available from a number of research projects, notably large
comparative surveys such as TIMSS and PISA. Some details are given below in Box 1.

Box 1. Statistical information and large-scale comparative studies

There are many excellent sources of up-t-date international information and analysis on
education. Here are a few of them.

UNESCO is the body with a global responsibility in this field. It defines common indicators to
facilitate valid international comparisons, and collects the relevant data. These are
published in comprehensive published statistical reports that are also available via the web
site http://www.unesco.org/

At regular intervals, UNESCO also publishes more analytical, global reports such as The
World Education Report (UNESCO 2000), together with more targeted and specific reports
on progress in the field of education.
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The OECD has a large education sector, and it publishes an important annual
report Education at a Glance (i.e. OECD 2001b). These, as well as other reports, including
underlying statistical annexes are available online at http://www.oecd.org/ Although the
focus is on the OECD countries, the data as well as the research cover other countries.

For science and technology (as well as for mathematics) education, the TIMSS study (Third
International Mathematics and Science Study) has become very influential. TIMSS is one of
many IEA studies (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement).
Background information as well as downloadable reports and data files are available at
http://timss.bc.edu/

TIMSS will be followed up in years to come (from 2002), although the acronym TIMSS will
get a somewhat different meaning (e.g., T for 'Trends' instead of Third')

The OECD has recently developed its own set of studies of student achievement, under the
acronym of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). PISA covers some 30
OECD countries together with some non-OECD countries. It aims at assessing how far
students who are approaching the end of compulsory education (about the age of 15) have
acquired some of the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in society.
The first report (OECD 2000a) presents evidence from the first round of data collection on
the performance in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy of students, schools and
countries. It reveals factors that influence the development of these skills at home and at
school, and examines the implications for policy development. Other reports and rounds of
data collection will follow, and these studies are likely to have a great political significance in
the future. Reports, background material and statistical data are available at
http://www.pisa.oecd.org/

Achievement studies – the critique

Large-scale comparative studies such as TIMSS and, to a lesser extent, PISA may have the
(possibly unintended) side effect of harmonising or universalising science (and other)
curricula across nations. Test format as well as curriculum content may come to provide
standards, 'benchmarks' or norms for participating countries as well as for other countries
not immediately involved in the research. In fact, the term 'benchmark' is frequently used in
TIMSS. An example is the "TIMSS 1999 Benchmarking Study" that sets out to compare states
and districts across the Untied States.

Furthermore, the international and cross-cultural nature of studies such as TIMSS has
necessarily required the development of test items that can be used independently of
educational or social context in an attempt to avoid ‘cultural bias’. As a result, these test
items tend to become decontextualized and rather abstract. This approach runs contrary to
recent thinking about teaching, learning and curriculum development, in which personal
and contextual relevance is emerging as a key educational concern. The publication and
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availability of TIMSS items in many countries might even be said to provide an 'incentive' to
use tests that, in both their closed multiple choice format and their lack of social context,
run contrary to national or local traditions.

Comparative research in education is important, but there is an obvious need to

complement the valuable data from TIMSS-like studies with more open and culturally
sensitive information and perspectives (Atkin and Black 1997). The PISA study is an attempt
to widen the scope of such large-scale studies, and the underlying framework for PISA is, in
contrast to TIMSS, not bound to school curricula. The publication of the first results from
PISA (OECD 2001a) suggests that the PISA studies will meet some of the criticisms raised
against the IEA-based studies like TIMSS. PISA will continue to develop and produce new
results for at least a decade.

Nonetheless, TIMSS and PISA do have some common characteristics. They are both high-
level initiatives 'from the top' to monitor scholastic achievement, and the main results are
published as rankings or league tables. The media coverage, assisted by the projects' own
reporting, often trivialises the educational enterprise and reduces it to a contest of national
prestige. The studies are also, with some exceptions, confined to rich countries in the OECD.
In most countries, these studies are initiated and heavily funded by governments and
Ministries of education. This reflects the legitimate needs of decision-makers and politicians
to obtain comparative data on the scholastic achievement of their pupils and to have some
measures of the efficiency and cost-benefits of their national educational systems. In an age
of globalisation and economic competition, national authorities are increasingly concerned
about how well their own education system compares with that of others. This, of course,
assumes that quality can be measured against common standards. Similarly, national
authorities have a legitimate need to obtain comparative international data relating to such
parameters as unit costs, the effectiveness of teacher training, the significance of class size,
and resource deployment.

One may, with considerable exaggeration, characterize projects like TIMSS and PISA as the
educational parallel of so-called Big Science or techno-science. The scale and costs of these
comparative studies are many factors higher than the kinds of research in which most
science educators are involved. The institutions that undertake these studies are often
government agencies for research and development, or research institutions from which the
government may reasonably expect a degree of loyalty. Such large-scale research projects
do not emerge from an independent and critical academic research perspective, and one
may use Ziman's concept of 'post-academic science' (Ziman 2000) to characterize them,
their loyalties and their implicit values and commitments.

Not unexpectedly, those who pay the bill also influence the 'definition' of what counts as
science. Given the strong domination of this work by the USA, it is no surprise that there
seem to be no test items that relate to topics such as the theory of evolution, human
reproduction, sexual minorities or sexually transmitted diseases. If such a science curriculum
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is used to define 'benchmarks', it may lead to a narrow conception of relevance, and hence
to a loweringof standards, rather than, as intended, the opposite.

Scientific and technological illiteracy and the Public Understanding of Science?

Projects like TIMSS and PISA describe the levels of achievement of children of school age.
However, there is a comparable political concern about how the general public relates to
science. The concern has many dimensions. These include the nature and level of public
scientific and technological knowledge, attitudes and interests, and, of course, the degree of
public support for scientific and technological research and the community that undertakes
it.

Acronyms like PUST (Public Understanding of Science and Technology) have become
indicators of growing unease about the situation. Academic journals are devoted to the
relevant issues (e.g., Public Understanding of Science) and several research institutions
study the challenges involved in promoting the public understanding of science. Phrases like
'scientific illiteracy' are also used, more or less fruitfully, to describe the situation. There is a
rich literature in the field, and this is marked by the many, and often conflicting, meanings
of some of the terms used. This position has been well reviewed and analysed by Jenkins
(1997).

In a series of studies dating back to the 1970s, Miller defined and measured scientific
literacy in the United States (e.g., Millar 1983), and his approach is evident in research
subsequently undertaken in this field in many other countries. See, for example, the
influential Eurobarometer studies (e.g., EU 2001).

A key research institute in this field is the International Center for the Advancement of
Scientific Literacy (ICASL) in the USA. With support from the National Science Foundation,
this regularly undertakes and publishes surveys of public scientific literacy, as well as of
public attitudes to science and technology. There is also international participation in some
of these surveys. The Center presents itself the following way:

Not more than 7 percent of Americans qualify as scientifically literate by relatively lenient
standards. Recognizing this serious problem, governments in most industrialized nations are
making concerted efforts to address the issue of pervasive illiteracy.

Such studies and conclusions are open to several sorts of criticism (Jenkins, 1994, 1997). The
questions asked in these studies are often derived directly from academic science so that lay
persons are asked to provide answers to questions such as ‘How many planets are there
around the Sun?’ and ‘Which is the larger, an atom or an electron?’ The studies can also be
seen as attempts by the scientific community to promote its own agenda and interests, by
lamenting the level of public understanding of science. Further, given the strong domination
by the USA among the organisers of large-scale comparative studies, these seldom
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accommodate cultural or social differences in the context within which the alleged scientific
and technological literacy is presumed to be required.

Several researchers have taken a different approach to the public understanding of science,
and investigated 'scientific knowledge in action', i.e., the use made of it in real-life situations
(see, for example, Irwin and Wynne 1996; Layton et al. 1993) Such studies provide a very
different understanding of what constitutes 'the problem' and how it might be addressed.

In spite of the criticism indicated here, reports like the bi-annual Science and Engineering
Indicators (NSB 2000) provide a wealth of information on many aspects of scientific and
technological research in society and education. Although these studies are North American,
the large volumes (more than 500 pages) include an important comparative perspective.
Reports such as the 2000 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education (at
http://2000survey.horizon-research.com/) also provide valuable data as well as analysis and
comparative insights. Based upon almost six thousand participating science and
mathematics teachers in schools across the United States, the study was sponsored by the
National Science Foundation.

Statistical data and most surveys, however, do not shed much light on the underlying causes
of many of the present educational concerns. Why have science and technology apparently
lost their attraction for many young people, and what might be done to remedy this
situation? Without some answers to these questions, intervention programmes designed to
increase interest in science and technology are unlikely to succeed.

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Q.2 Write contribution of Ibn Sina in science education. Explain effects of hydrological (
water cycle) cycle on your life.

Contribution of Ibn Sina in science education

Ibn Sina is generally known as one of the most important philosophers and physicians, one
whose contributions to science and philosophy have attracted numerous studies. This article
provides an outline of his philosophy of science which determined the framework for his
understanding of natural philosophy. Rather than being of historical interest, the article
argues, Ibn Sina's philosophy of science is a useful beginning for developing a contemporary
Islamic philosophy of science. The article also discusses Ibn Sina's importance in the
philosophy of health and medicine.

Keywords: Contributions of Ibn Sina in various sciences; Islamic philosophy of science;

health and medicine in Islam; Ibn Sina and contemporary Islamic intellectual thought.
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Ibn Sina is without doubt the most widely known intellectual figure concerned with science
in Islamic civilization. He has, in fact, gained the image of a folk hero, especially in the zones
of Arabic, Persian, and Turkic cultures, where numerous stories concerning his exceptional
intellectual powers came into being in the form of folktales told by grandmothers to their
grandchildren over the centuries. Moreover, his medical heritage is alive wherever Islamic
medicine is still practiced, such as in Pakistan and India, and his influence as a philosopher
and even theologian is to be felt wherever the Islamic philosophical tradition survives, as in
Persia. The sign of respect for him as almost the archetype of the Muslim philosopher-
scientist can be seen in the number of hospitals, schools, and centers of research bearing his
name from Morocco to Malaysia.

In this essay we shall limit the definition of science to the mathematical and natural, while
remembering that Ibn Sina also made major contributions to the sciences of language,
music, psychology, etc., and even the occult sciences (al-'ulum al-gharibah), not to speak of
the supreme science or metaphysics (al-ilahiyyat) which determined the framework for his
understanding of natural philosophy (al-ilahiyyat). Because of the fame of Ibn Sina in both
the West and in the Islamic world, numerous studies have been devoted to him and even if
we were to limit ourselves to the above given definition of science, it would still be
necessary to compose a large work and in fact many volumes to do justice to Ibn Sina's
contributions to science and its philosophy. (1) Here we shall provide a simple summary
based on a lifelong study of his philosophical and scientific works, without claiming to have
exhausted the discussion of any of the fields to which he made contributions.

Before turning to specific sciences, it is essential that we deal with Ibn Sina's contributions
to what in today's terminology would be called "philosophy of science" and the more
traditional category of natural philosophy, which are in fact the most important aspects of
his scientific legacy, worthy of much more study than has been granted them until now. It is
our belief that in this aspect of Ibn Sina's work is to be found one of the major cornerstones
for the creation of a contemporary Islamic philosophy of science. His discussion of the
relation of physics to metaphysics, the meaning of form (Eurah) in both physics and the
biological sciences, the relation between various sciences in the context of the Islamic
intellectual tradition and many other subjects dealt comprehensively by this remarkable
figure are of great relevance today and are not only of historic interest.

Before Ibn Sina, philosophers such as al-Kindi and al-Farabi had been concerned with the
classification of the sciences, which is a matter of great significance for a worldview based
on tawhid and the consequent inter-relation of all branches of authentic knowledge. Ibn
Sina continued this effort with greater knowledge of particular sciences than his illustrious
predecessors and also at a time when the various sciences had developed more fully. His
treatise Fi aqsam al-ulum al-'aqliyyah (Classification of the Rational Sciences) as well as his
classification of the sciences in his Kitab al-shifa' (The Book of Healing) are major
contributions to a subject of great importance in Islamic civilization, namely the rapport
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between various sciences, both intellectual and religious. (2) From the Islamic point of view,
an authentically Islamic philosophy of science cannot ignore the relation between various
modes of knowing and the sciences which result from them. Ibn Sina's contributions to this
subject are still of significance and will surely play a role in any serious current effort made
to re-create a contemporary Islamic classification of the sciences which would be
authentically Islamic.

Another element of Ibn Sina's philosophy of nature is his contribution to logic and the use of
logic in the mathematical sciences. As has been shown by A.M. Goichon and others, while
Ibn Sina used the Aristotelian syllogistic method, he allowed empirical causes to be used as
the middle term in a syllogism. (3) The dichotomy observed in the West between
Aristotelian syllogistic thinking and scientific induction, and empirical knowledge and the
attack made by defenders of the latter against Aristotelian reasoning as one finds in Francis
Bacon, do not in fact apply to Ibn Sina and later Islamic thinkers influenced by him. Thanks
to him induction played a different role vis-a-vis deductive thinking from what one finds in
the mainstream Western philosophy, and the two complemented rather than opposed each
other in Islamic thought. A major twentieth century treatment of the subject of induction by
the Muslim philosopher Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (4) is in many ways the authentication
and continuation of the philosophical efforts of Ibn Sina in this domain.

The question of induction in logic leads us to the general subject of epistemology and the
so-called scientific method of Ibn Sina. One of the greatest scientific contributions of Ibn
Sina was to demonstrate that there are, in fact, not one but many methods of acquiring
scientific knowledge, ranging from empirical observation and experimentation, to deduction
and demonstration, to intellectual intuition which he called hads. If anyone carefully studies
the history of science in general, including modern science, he will realize how all these
methods of knowing have been at play in various stages of scientific discovery, and how
shallow and unscientific it is to speak of a single scientific method. Kepler did not discover
the laws of planetary motion nor Einstein the theory of relativity nor Heisenberg the
uncertainty principle through what ordinary textbooks describe as the "scientific method."

Today, because of the prevalence of scientism among many modernistic Muslim thinkers,
there is a vast body of literature being produced in various Islamic languages on "the
scientific method." Islamic science, however, was based not on one method but several
methods for knowing the world about us, and a hierarchy was in fact created within
epistemology in Islamic philosophy which also permitted the creation of harmony between
various modes of knowing, including revealed knowledge, between what is attained through
revelation, intellection and reasoning, and what is known empirically. (5) Surely this issue is
of the greatest importance for the current challenges which modern science poses for
Islamic thought, and again the contribution of Ibn Sina to the subject is of the utmost
significance.
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The philosophy of science of Ibn Sina includes of course the philosophy of the natural world,
one which is of the profoundest order and which is far from having become outmoded, as
many modern Muslim thinkers believe. In his natural philosophy, Ibn Sina follows to a large
extent Aristotle, as far as such basic theses such as hylomorphism and potentiality and
actuality are concerned, although his metaphysics is different from that of the Stagirite as
far as the meaning of being and the basic ontological question of necessity and contingency
is concerned. It must be remembered that, although for a long time Aristotelian natural
philosophy was severely attacked, going all the way back to the works of Galileo, the
Aristotelian idea of potentiality was resuscitated in modern quantum mechanics by no less a
figure than Werner Heisenberg and that both the concepts of potentiality/actuality and
morphos in the Aristotelian sense are still very much alive in the more profound new
interpretations that are being given by certain contemporary scientists of quantum
mechanics, not to speak of biology. (6) One hardly needs to remind contemporary Muslim
thinkers seeking to create an Islamic philosophy of science how valuable the contributions
of Ibn Sina--and for that matter, those of later Islamic philosophers such as Mulla Cadra--are
for today's Islamic thinkers. (7) One should never forget that Ibn Sina has provided in his
Kitab al- shifa' the most extensive, complete and systematic account of Aristotelian natural
philosophy in its Islamic form, more complete than the works of Aristotle himself, and a
veritable synthesis which influenced not only later Islamic thought but also much of
European scholasticism, especially the thought of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. (8)
Present day Thomistic philosophers seeking to create a new philosophy of nature are very
much in debt to the momentous contributions of Ibn Sina to the subject, including his
contribution to the philosophy of biology, which has not received as much attention as his
discussions of physics and cosmology in general.

Although he was not a major mathematician like the reviver of his philosophy, Nasir al-Din
al-Tusi, Ibn Sina made important contributions to the philosophy of mathematics, not to
speak of his notable studies of the theoretical and mathematical aspects of music and his
role in the criticism of the mathematical astronomy of Ptolemy, which was widely pursued
in later centuries by al-Tusi, al-'Urdi, al-Shirazi and others. What is important, as far as his
contributions to the philosophy of mathematics is concerned, is his discussion of
mathematical form in relation to logical concepts and the rapport between formal and
mathematical logic. Little work has been done in the Islamic philosophy of mathematics
until now. Once such an undertaking is fully accomplished, it will become clear that even in
this field, where his mathematical contributions were nowhere near as great as those of
other philosophically minded scientists such as Ibn al-Haytham, 'Umar Khayyam and al-Tusi,
Ibn Sina nevertheless played an important role in the creation of the philosophy of
mathematics as an important branch of the Islamic philosophy of science.

The various aspects of Ibn Sina's natural and mathematical philosophy, or what is called
today, with a modified meaning, the "philosophy of science", are to be found in the Kitab al-
shifa'. This work needs to be studied thoroughly with the view of bringing out his total
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philosophy of science, including general cosmology, (9) philosophy of physics, philosophy of

living forms and philosophy of mathematics. There is probably no other work in the annals
of Islamic thought that is as important as the Shifa' from this point of view. It is also in this
encyclopedic work that we see for the first time the systematic treatment of the three
kingdoms--that is, minerals, plants and animals--in their interrelation with one another,
something not found in any single work, nor in such a systematic manner, in any Greek text.
Also it is in this book that the idea of the great chain of being is used as the metaphysical
basis for the integration of all the different sciences from physics (in the modern sense) to
the life sciences to meteorology to astronomy and finally to the science of being beyond the
visible world. Although the elements of these ideas had existed among Greek and earlier
Islamic philosophers, their synthesis owes its existence to Ibn Sina, a synthesis which played
a major role in the later history of science and natural history in both the Muslim world and
the West.

II

Ibn Sina was not only the most famous of all Muslim philosopher-scientists, he was also the
most celebrated medical authority in the classical Islamic world as well as in the medieval
West. His contributions to medicine, pharmacology and related subjects are immense, and
need separate treatment if one is to do justice to all that Ibn Sina accomplished in these
domains. What we wish to emphasize here is the philosophy of medicine that he expounded
on the basis of the synthesis of Hippocrates, Galen, Indian and pre-Islamic Persian medicine
as well as earlier Islamic physicians such as al-Tabari and al-Razi and Islamic teachings about
health and related subjects. What is health? What is illness? These are questions that are
difficult to answer in the framework of the prevalent mechanistic view of modern medicine.
For Ibn Sina, however, his philosophy of medicine provided a clear answer to these
questions. The human being possesses levels of reality situated in the vertical hierarchy of
body, soul and spirit. On the horizontal level, the body of the human microcosm also
possesses elements and natures which combine to form the human corporeal reality. Health
is equilibrium and balance between elements of both the horizontal and vertical dimensions
of the human microcosm and illness is loss of this equilibrium. Moreover, to be healthy it is
necessary that an equilibrium be established with one's environment and in one's diet and
manner of living, or what is today called lifestyle, as well as between one's physical and
one's psychological states, and finally between the soul and the spirit and ultimately with
God. All of these realities and their harmonious relation play a role in human health, as the
loss of harmony between them is instrumental in bringing about illness.

Ibn Sina formulated an elaborate philosophy of what is today called holistic medicine. (10) In
his treatment of illness he did not shun any means that he considered to be effective. While
providing herbal and mineral medicaments, he also used psychosomatic medicine as well as
what is today called spiritual healing. If formulated in a contemporary language, Ibn Sina's
philosophy of medicine is bound to be readily accepted in a world in which there is so much
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interest in holistic medicine. Moreover, Avicennean or Islamic medicine will certainly have
as wide an appeal in the West as acupuncture, Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine if presented
correctly by competent practitioners of this all-important school of medicine. This also holds
true for the Muslim world itself, where, except for the Indo-Pakistani Subcontinent, the
practice of Islamic medicine was gradually reduced to "folk medicine" by the early
14th/20th century. The remarkable success of the two brothers, Hakim 'Abd al-Hamid and
Hakim Muhammad Sa'id in creating the Hamdard centers in Delhi and Karachi after the
partition of India bears witness to the ever-living importance of the medical heritage of Ibn
Sina.

Ibn Sina did not, of course, create only a grand synthesis containing a total medical
philosophy. He also made major specific contributions to medicine and pharmacology. This
included everything from discerning meningitis as a distinct illness, the contagious nature of
tuberculosis, the real cause of asthma and the significance of the optic nerve, to
experimenting with and subscribing many drugs for various illnesses. The vast
pharmacopoeia of Ibn Sina includes of course many earlier sources, but there are also many
drugs for which he is directly responsible. Ibn Sina also emphasized the importance of public
health. For him as for other authorities of Islamic medicine, the most important medical
action is to prevent disease through public health and diet rather than cure it after disease
has already infected the patient. His combination of diet and medicaments and
consideration of the two to be complementary is not unique to him, and characterizes
Islamic medicine in general, but he himself made major contributions not only to the
exposition of the idea, but also to prescribing specific diets in combination with various
drugs. In Islamic medicine the line between various food substances and what we call drugs
or medicine today is thin, and the use of food materials with medical properties and
medicinal substances with nourishing qualities is common. Ibn Sina's contribution to the
creation of this harmonious interplay between dietary and medical usages and regulations is
central, and he left that as a legacy for later Islamic medicine and even traditional cuisines of
the Islamic world.

Furthermore, the widespread influence of this remarkable figure whom the West called
"The Prince of Physicians" caused many of these ideas to spread to Western medicine and
to remain prevalent until the rise of mechanistic science and medicine in the 11th/17th
century. It is strange that now that many of these traditional ideas are being revived in the
West, Ibn Sina is not being given his dues as one of the main authors of the thesis that food
is also medicine for the body and medicine can be food, and that the effect of the two are
complimentary and interrelated.

III

A few words must also be said about Ibn Sina's contributions to the other sciences besides
medicine, and the disciplines of the philosophy of science, cosmology and natural history.
The Kitab al-shifa' is not only the first work in which the three kingdoms in natural history,
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as they later became known, were treated together systematically, it also contains the most
extensive discussion of geology and the mineral kingdom of any classical Islamic work.
Besides having analyzed the structure of a meteor, Ibn Sina dealt with the formation of
sedimentary rocks and the role of earthquakes in mountain formation. He displayed clear
awareness of the possibility of seas turning into dry land and vice-versa and was therefore
able to give a correct explanation for the discovery of fossils on mountain tops. Regarding
the formation of metals, while rejecting the possibility of alchemical transmutation, he
accepted the Jabirean sulphur-mercury theory which he combined with the mineralogical
theories of Aristotle and Theophrastus. His works and those of Muslim scientists who
followed him played a very important role in the later development of chemical theories
which grew out of the alchemical worldview, once the symbolic and spiritual significance of
alchemy was forgotten. It must be recalled, however, that although Ibn Sina created a
synthesis of ideas concerning the nature of the mineral and metallic states, the
transformation of alchemy to chemistry proceeded him and was accomplished by
Muhammad ibn Zakariyya' al-Razi (ca. 250-313/854-925). (11) In any case, the contributions
of Ibn Sina to several aspects of geology and mineralogy are significant in the history of
these sciences.

From the point of view of the later development of modern science, perhaps the most
important scientific contribution of Ibn Sina, outside the field of medicine, was to dynamics
and the study of projectile motion. Aristotle had discussed the question of projectile as
against natural motion, and had come up with theories for its explanation which were
already criticized before the rise of Islam by John Philoponos. Ibn Sina was fully aware of the
views of Aristotle on this matter and was, like Philoponos, critical of the Stagirite on this
subject. Ibn Sina developed the theory of mayl (the Latin inclinatio), according to which,
whenever a body is in projectile motion in opposition to its natural motion, an "inclination"
is created in it to return to its natural place and motion, and this causes it to move until that
mayl is spent. Ibn Sina's views were added to those of Ibn al-Haytham, who spoke of
momentum, as well as the theories of Ibn Bajjah and others, and they played a critical role
in showing the weakness of Aristotelian physics in explaining projectile motion and in
preparing the ground for Galileo's rejection of that physics. The language of these Muslim
philosophers can be detected in Galileo's Pisan Dialogue. (12)

IV

Ibn Sina's greatest significance for the sciences, as far as contemporary Muslims are
concerned, is his natural philosophy, or, in modern parlance, philosophy of science, and
medicine. Today the Islamic world is in dire need of developing its own natural philosophy
rooted in the deepest teachings of the Islamic revelation and fourteen centuries of a living
Islamic intellectual tradition. The contributions of Ibn Sina are indispensable in order to
accomplish this task successfully. No amount of scientism wrapped in piety by certain
contemporary Muslims can prevent Ibn Sinan philosophy, including his philosophy of
 14

nature, from remaining as a very important component of the still living Islamic intellectual
tradition. After over a thousand years, Ibn Sina still has a great deal to teach us, not only
about logic, philosophy and medicine but also about science itself, about how to be an
authentic Islamic scientist, and about how to integrate the sciences of nature into the total
scheme of knowledge in such a way as to preserve tawhid and to prevent a partial
knowledge of the relative from eclipsing and marginalizing the knowledge of the Absolute,
the attainment of the knowledge of Which is the ultimate goal of human existence.

Effects of hydrological (water cycle) cycle on your life

The water cycle or the hydrologic cycle is one of the greatest natural processes . It has two
significant effects:

1-Effects on climate

The water cycle involves the exchange of energy, which leads to temperature changes. For
instance, when water evaporates, it takes up energy from its surroundings and cools the
environment. When it condenses, it releases energy and warms the environment. These
heat exchanges influence climate.

2-Effects on biogeochemical cycling

While the water cycle is itself a biogeochemical cycle, flow of water over and beneath the
Earth is a key component of the cycling of other biogeochemicals. Runoff is responsible for
almost all of the transport f eroded sediment and phosphorusfrom land to waterbodies.

There are many articles which discusses the human impact on water cycle. here is the
effects based on NASA website:

Large-scale human manipulation of water has significantly altered global patterns of

streamflow. Resulting changes in sea level, ocean salinity, and in biophysical properties of
the land surface could ultimately generate climate feedbacks.

According to a study by Vivien Gornitz (GISS/Columbia), Cynthia Rosenzweig (GISS), and Dan
Hillel (University of Massachusetts), human regulation of river flow and vegetation clearing
has reduced river runoff by around 324 km3 per year, representing nearly 1% of the total
annual streamflow (41,022 km3/yr) and around 10% of the yearly volume of fresh water
used by people (3240 km3/yr).

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Q.3 a) write electronic configuration of first ten elements given in periodic table.

B) What would happen if there were no mixtures?

a)
 15

Name Atomic Number Electron Configuration

Period 1
Hydrogen 1 1s1
Helium 2 1s2
Period 2
Lithium 3 1s2 2s1
Beryllium 4 1s2 2s2
Boron 5 1s2 2s22p1
Carbon 6 1s2 2s22p2
Nitrogen 7 1s2 2s22p3
Oxygen 8 1s2 2s22p4
Fluorine 9 1s2 2s22p5
Neon 10 1s2 2s22p6

b)

Mixtures are absolutely everywhere you look. Most things in nature are mixtures. Look at
rocks, the ocean, or even the atmosphere. They are all mixtures, and mixtures are
about physical properties, not chemical ones. That statement means the individual
molecules enjoy being near each other, but their fundamental chemical structure does not
change when they enter the mixture. If the chemical structure changed, it would be called
a reaction.

When you see distilled water (H2O), it's a

pure substance. That means that there are
only water molecules in the liquid. A mixture
would be a glass of water with other things
dissolved inside, maybe one of those powders
you take if you get sick. Each of the
substances in that glass keeps its own
chemical properties. So, if you have some dissolved substances in water, you can boil off the
water and still have those dissolved substances left over. If you have some salt (NaCl) in
water and then boil off the water, the salt remains in the pan. The salt is left because it
takes very high temperatures to meltsalt (even more to boil it).

Mixtures are Everywhere

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There are an infinite number of mixtures.

Anything you can combine is a mixture. Think
of everything you eat. Just think about how
many cakes there are. Each of those cakes is
made up of a different mixture of ingredients.
Even the wood in your pencil is considered a
mixture. There is the basic cellulose of the
wood, but there are also thousands of other
compounds in that pencil. Solutions are also
mixtures, but all of the molecules are evenly
spread out through the system. They are
called homogenous mixtures.

If you put sand into a glass of water, it is

considered to be a mixture. You can always tell a mixture, because each of the substances
can be separated from the group in different physical ways. You can always get the sand out
of the water by filtering the water away. If you were busy, you could just leave the sand and
water mixture alone for a few minutes. Sometimes mixtures separate on their own. When
you come back, you will find that all of the sand has sunk to the bottom. Gravity was helping
you with the separation. Don't forget that a mixture can also be made of two liquids. Even
something as simple as oil and water is a mixture.

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Q.4 a) consider a tug of war which two teams pulling on a rope are eventually matched. So
that no motion takes place.is work done on the rope?

b) In most situations the friction force reduces the kinetic energy. However frictional
friction can sometime increase the kinetic energy. Discuss a few situations in which
friction causes an increase in kinetic energy.

a)

No. If there is no motion there is no work.

b)

If a crate is located on the bed of a truck, and the truck accelerates, the friction force
extended on the crate causes it to undergo the same acceleration as the truck, assuming
that the crate doesn't slip. Another example is a car that accelerates because of the
frictional forces between the road surface and its tires. This force is in the direction of the
motion of the care and produces an increase in the cars kinetic energy.
 17

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Q.5a) Define kinetic energy. Derive KE=1/2mv2

b) Explain nature of light in detail.

a)

KINETIC ENERGY

"Energy posses by a body by virtue of its motion are referred to as ‘Kinetic

Energy’".

Kinetic energy is the energy an object has because of its motion.

If we want to accelerate an object, then we must apply a force. Applying a force

requires us to do work. After work has been done, energy has been transferred to
the object, and the object will be moving with a new constant speed. The energy
transferred is known as kinetic energy, and it depends on the mass and speed
achieved.

Kinetic energy can be transferred between objects and transformed into other
kinds of energy. For example, a flying squirrel might collide with a stationary
chipmunk. Following the collision, some of the initial kinetic energy of the squirrel
might have been transferred into the chipmunk or transformed to some other form
of energy.

FORMULA

K.E. = 1/2 mv2

Kinetic energy depends upon the mass and velocity of body.

If velocity is zero then K.E. of body will also be zero.

Kinetic energy is a scalar quantity like other forms of energies.

DERIVE: K.E = 1/2 mv2

PROOF

Consider a body of mass "m" starts moving from rest. After a

time interval "t" its velocity becomes V.
If initial velocity of the body is Vi = 0 ,final velocity Vf = V and the
 18

displacement of body is "d". Then

First of all we will find the acceleration of body.

Using equation of motion

2aS = Vf2 – Vi2

Putting the above mentioned values
2ad = V2 – 0
a = V2/2d

Now force is given by

F = ma
Putting the value of acceleration
F = m(V2/2d)
As we know that
Work done = Fd

Putting the value of F

Work done = (mv2/2d)(d)
Work done = mV2/2
OR
Work done = ½ mV2

Since the work done is motion is called "Kinetic Energy"

i.e.
K.E. = Work done
OR
K.E. =1/2mV2.

b)

Light is a transverse, electromagnetic wave that can be seen by humans. The wave nature of
light was first illustrated through experiments on diffraction and interference. Like all
 19

electromagnetic waves, light can travel through a vacuum. The transverse nature of light
can be demonstrated through polarization.

In 1678, Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) published Traité de la Lumiere, where he argued in

favor of the wave nature of light. Huygens stated that an expanding sphere of light behaves
as if each point on the wave front were a new source of radiation of the same frequency
and phase.

Thomas Young (1773–1829) and Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) disproved Newton's

corpuscular theory.

sources

Light is produced by one of two methods…

Incandescence is the emission of light from "hot" matter (T ≳ 800 K).

Luminescence is the emission of light when excited electrons fall to lower energy levels
(in matter that may or may not be "hot").

speed

Just notes so far. The speed of light in a vacuum is represented by the letter c from the
Latin celeritas — swiftness. Measurements of the speed of light.

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