About Science: Conceptual Physics Chapter 1

Why is physics the most basic science?

• The ideas of physics explain the ideas of the other sciences

• The equations of physics are pretty easy - they are mostly just multiplying and dividing

• There's not much vocabulary in physics, and the diagrams are pretty easy

• All of these reasons

Why is mathematics important to science?

• Findings expressed mathematically are easier to communicate, verify or disprove

• Equations give us a compact way to describe relationships

• Equations don't have double meanings like regular language does

• All of these reasons

What are the steps of the scientific method?

• 1. Recognize a problem

  2. Make an educated guess

  3. Predict consequences of that guess

  4. Experiment to test predictions

  5. Formulate a rule organizing hypothesis, prediction, outcome

• 1. Recognize a problem

  2. Make an educated guess

  3. Predict consequences

  4. Keep testing until the results match the prediction

• 1. Recognize a problem

  2. Make an educated guess

  3. Formulate a rule describing your prediction

• All of these answers

Is a scientific fact something that is absolute and unchanging? - - Defend your answer.

• Yes. If it weren't, wouldn't it be called something else?

• No. A fact is close agreement of many observers, but new observations can still refine it.

• Yes. Once it's published it's set.

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Scientific theories undergo change - Is this a strength or a weakness of science? - - Defend your answer.

• It's a strength. Improving beliefs is more important than defending them.

• It's a weakness. If it can change, what's the point of learning it?

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How do you know that a hypothesis is scientific ?

• A hypothesis is scientific if there is a test that can prove it wrong.

• A hypothesis is scientific when enough important people refer to it.

• All hypotheses are scientific.

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What is the difference between science and technology?

• Science is a method of answering theoretical questions; technology is a method of solving practical problems

• These two words describe basically the same thing.

• Science is more fun

How are science and the arts similar?

• The arts describes human experience, even parts we haven't seen. Science describes nature, even parts we haven't seen.

• Art is one of the sciences

How does the rate of progress differ today from the rate in previous centuries?

• Even not so long ago, great things could take more than a century to build

• Progress in our age is much quicker than it was thousands of years ago

• Some people working on spaceships today were born before jet airliners

• All of these answers

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Why does science tend to be a “self correcting” way of knowing about things?

• The theories of science are not fixed, but rather evolve through testing and refinement.

• When scientists find evidence to contradict an idea,

  that idea must be updated

• We're always discovering new ideas, while the old ideas are forgotten

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