Chapter 1: Knowledge, Science, and the Universe Flashcards
Protons and neutrons together form atomic nuclei.
true/false
true
Occam’s razor states that complex explanations are more likely to be true than simple explanations.
true/false
false
Intuition is the act, or faculty of knowing, or sensing outside the five physical senses.
true/false
true
A law, such as Newton’s First Law of Motion, can never be proved wrong.
true/false
false
The laws on Mars are slightly different than the laws on Earth due to the differences in each planet’s composition.
true/false
false
Cause must always precede the effect.
Causality
A substance made of atoms, all of which contain the same number of protons.
Element
The laws of the universe are not different at different locations.
Position Symmetry
An accepted source of expert information or advice
Authority
The force that arises from the interaction of anything with mass
Gravity
A well-tested theory, so firm as to be unquestioned by science
Law
A push or pull on an object
Force
The assertion that a world separate and distinct from our minds that actually exists
Existence
Any of the four fundamental ways in which elementary particles and bodies can influence each other.
Interaction
A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation
Hypothesis
The capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought
Reason
A schematic description of a system, theory, or phenomenon that accounts for its known or inferred properties and may be used for further study of its characteristics
Model
The interaction between nucleons that holds them together
Strong Nuclear Interaction
The laws of the universe do not change with time.
Time Symmetry
Knowledge obtained through seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling
Sensory Data
What are the four ways of learning?
Authority
Intuition
Sensory Data
Reason
The act of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes, or immediate cognition.
Intuition
The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
Cognition
The force governing electron motion in an electric circuit
electromagnetic interaction.
What is irrational, People and/or Nature?
People
What sensory limitations affect human vision.
Spectral sensitivity, Spectral Resolution, Time resolution, Light intensity
When people only see a limited number of color frequencies.
Spectral sensitivity
We only have three color sensors for the frequencies of light that we can see.
Spectral Resolution
If something is too small to see it clearly.
Spatial Resolution
If things happen too fast we can’t see them. If they are too slow we don’t notice them.
Time resolution
It takes a certain threshold of light to excite our retina before we can see on the low end, and if the light is too bright, we are blinded on the other end
Light intensity
Which sense do humans not possess?
An ability to feel static electricity.
An ability to feel magnetism.
An ability to sense infrared radiation
An ability to detect infrasound
An ability to feel magnetism.
The other things can be detected by “auxiliary” senses. Static electricity if felt by surface hairs “standing up”, infrared radiation is felt as heat, infrasound can shake you in one way or another.
A collection of observations that have been found to be related by a repeatable pattern and that have been linked by formulating a “model” that allows further experiments and predictions to me made.
Theory
We cannot see infrared light with our eyes, but if we could what might be different?
Things would appear to change color when their temperature changed.
Hypothesis -> Experiment -> Sensory Data -> Reasoning
What is this cycle?
Scientific Method
What are the Six “Self-Evident”Truths?
- Existence
- Causality
- Position Symmetry
- Time Symmetry
- Principle of Non contradiction
- Occam’s Razor
The fact or state of having actual or real being.
Existence
Of two contradictory propositions, both can not be true.
Principle of Non contradiction
The intenteraction between nucleons that gives rise to the weak force.
Weak nuclear Interaction
Name the 4 interactions of Nature from weak to strong.
Gravity, Nuclear weak, Electromagnetic, Nuclear strong
Name the 4 interactions of Nature from Relative strength.
Gravity, Nuclear weak, Electromagnetic, Nuclear strong
An unchanged particle in atomic nuclei made up of three quarks.
Neutron
A generic name for either a proton or a neutron.
Nucleon
The basic building block of protons and neutrons.
Quark
Nuclear strong acts upon?
Nucleons
Electromagnetic acts upon
Charged matter
Nuclear weak acts upon
Nucleans
Gravity acts upon
Mass
A term referring to atoms whose nuclei can spontaneously change under the influence of the weak nuclear force.
Radioactive
An elementary particle in atoms having a negative charge.
Electron
Electrons are located outside atomic nuclei.
The fundamental unit of and element
Atom
A substance composed entirely of atoms having the same number of protons in their nuclei.
Element
The tiniest particles of a substance that retain all the physical properties of that substance. They are usually made up of more than one atom.
Molecules
What makes up Electromagnetic interaction?
Radioactive, Electron, atom, element, moecules
The sun and all planets, comets, asteroids, and other bodies that orbit about it under the pull of gravity.
Solar system
What shape do object that are held together end to have?
Round shape
Explain Gravitational interaction.
As molecular assemblies increase in mass they are eventually held together by gravity.
The positively charged central region of an atom, composed of protons and neutrons.
Atomic Nuclei
