pendulum motion

Many of the ideas in this article, I felt , were quite above my head but some of the discoveries I made were interesting. I never realized that the pendulum was the first apparatus to accurately record time to the minute, or that until its creation most people only really understood time to the hour. Also there was so much room for error that I had never thought of before. Time was the measure in which many other variables were able to be explained, like speed and direction. This makes perfect sense, but it wasn't something that I had made connections about until reading this. Without an understanding of time, explorers couldn't know how how far they had gone or in what direction...it seems like common knowledge, but from someone who's always had full knowledge of the concept of time to the second, it's something of which I never would have thought. I guess this is why they call the measures of latitude and longitude "minutes"? This is just a theory, because I've never been told the true reasoning behind this.
 I enjoyed learning that science is not always a finite practice, and that even those who are considered great minds and philosophers in the feild of science admit that their laws are only applicable in the most ideal of situations and not how all objects behave in a realistic state; there is always room for deviation even in the laws of physics. This is why mathematics can't always explain what happens in the natural world, because we can't always predict what will happen or how it will happen.

light observation

Although this experiment may sound a little hazardous, or probably very unsafe, I decided to experiment with my car's headlights while driving. As I was driving home from a friend's house tonight through some low fog to get my neighborhood, I suddenly remembered our discussion about how fog or water vapor can intensify a beam. The fog seemed very thick because my headlights were shining directly on the areas covered with fog, so I turned them off. It wasn't the best idea while driving, but I was surprised to observe the fog itself really wasn't visible. I also noticed the moonlight shining on low-lying fog in a nearby field. I thought, "Would the fog appear as thick and defined if the moonlight weren't reflecting off of it?" I got home and decided to use a flashlight outside to see if I could see a beam. To my surprise, I couldn't. At a certain angle, a could see how the light was traveling a very short distance from head of the flashlight but there was not even a definitive "fuzzy path of light". I think this may have been a result of too much surrounding light (a streetlamp, full moon, etc.). I have a feeling that if I were in the the middle of the foggy field I would be able to see the beam because there would be less surrounding light and the fog could intensify the beam. However, this is only a theory, as I was unable to do this.

The Virtues of Not Knowing

I found this article very interesting to read because I thought that it emphasized well the idea that the journey to fully understanding something is what matters most, and not that you've necessarily reached a conclusion or found a solution to the problem. Also, it was great to see that first impressions and assumptions weren't correct when students made conjectures concerning science. In my opinion, it takes either talking things through on your own, like Jac did with the liquid experiment, or discussing ideas with your peers to really understand and grasp a concept. I believe that in order to learn something, we first have to experience it, to which science lends itself well. Every child's opinion was valued, and everyone worked together to understand the natural phenomena they were observing without much assistance. I think that the more children "think out loud" the better they will be able to learn independently. This article was a great example of the fact that the process of learning is more important than the end to which we come to find the correct answer.