Week 9

My E-Prime Day

I think I woke up at what is considered 9 in the morning to the residents of California.  I then walked from my bed to the room where there is a toilet, sink, and bathtub. I picked up an instrument that is named a toothbrush to the western world, and I used it to clean my teeth. I thought that it would be a wise decision to clean my laundry, so I proceeded to do so. I then thought it would be a good idea to grab a pan and cook food from the refrigerator while I waited for the laundry machine to be done completely with my clothes. After all of this, I got a few books from my classes and read them while taking notes. 

[Oh dear, this is horrible E-prime. And a lot tougher than I thought it'd be!]

How might you synthesize eastern and western ideas in Physics?

I think it's an interesting how we're constantly comparing eastern and western ideas in every way, so of course physics wouldn't be an exception.  I think using the science of western ideas and the philosophical eastern ideas with physics would be a good way to further compare the two. Overall, I think it's a complex idea...but not impossible to do (for someone of a higher caliber, of course). 

Week 8

Newton's Three Laws and Me

I think Newton's Three Laws can be applied to everyday life.

Law 1: An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. 

An everyday example of this is with ketchup! When you flip the bottle over and it's not full, it may just stick to the bottle and nothing will come out. However, if you hit it, the ketchup will come out. Me hitting it is the unbalanced force that makes it move from it's resting position. 

Law 2: Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass. The greater the mass the greater the amount of force needed. 

I think of driving. From the moment you start the car to getting on the highway and accelerating. You don't have to apply that much pressure to the gas when you're going 25 mph down Broadway, but if you're on the 580 you have to put more force to the pedal to accelerate.

Law 3: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

Everyday in class! When I sit in a chair, I'm exerting a downward motion on it and the chair is exerting an upward motion on me.

Our Energy Efficient Culture

Obviously, we are anything but energy efficient. At least in my opinion. We might be taking steps in that general direction, but they are baby steps. While we're trying to be more energy efficient, I can't help but wander how much we're helping, while at the same time how much damage we're doing. 

Descartes

Oh, Descartes. I feel like he was pretty much the whole package, even though he might not have been exactly right about a few things. But his ambition was there! I think it's interesting how he tried to simplify things by just grouping them together, which makes sense. But as others have discussed, it's obviously not the best thing to do. And Laura even mentioned how it's similar to Western Medicine, which I completely agree with. It shouldn't just be stuffed into a category, but other components of the body need to be taken into consideration.

Week 7

“Ordered chaos” – does this sound familiar?

  

Chaos is around us everywhere we look. From the streets to even my living room. I think that ordered chaos is scientists way of putting a grasp on the unexplainable.  In the western world, we like to solve and analyze everything, from medicine to math. Further understanding how the world can function in chaos is just a way to further examine how the world works.  When I think of ordered chaos, I think of a lot of people's houses/rooms. It may look like a mess to any other person, but to the person who's belongings are everywhere, they know exactly where everything it is.

Fractals as patterns of complex systems

 A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems – the pictures of Chaos.  While they're lovely to look at, the whole system behind them still confuses me.

 
Consciousness out of chaos?

As stated before, I think chaos is a constant factor in our lives. Even if it doesn't seem chaotic, it is. In a typical day, we do a lot of things! Grooming ourselves, eating, talking, listening, studying, working, etc. Time always goes forward, and we're constantly moving/thing about the next step.  While we might not be conscious of our every move that we make (breathing, blinking, etc) we should step back and try to make sense of the "chaos" that we're experiencing. 

 Experiments

I tried a few of the experiments but none of them really worked for some reason =(