RM Tut 1

UNIVERSITY OF NAMIBIA DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 1 TUTORIAL AND EXERCISE 1 1) Read the following:
The story of the movement of the planets:

Hundreds of years ago Egyptian, Chinese and Mayan sky watchers noticed that whereas most of the stars in the sky stayed in a fixed pattern relative to each other (the constellations), a few of the bright stars seemed to move around the sky. These were called the planets (the word means the wanderers). At this time, for religious or other reasons, it was assumed that the earth was the centre of the universe and all other bodies revolved around it. Their orbits must be perfect circles because the circle was the perfect heavenly shape. Stars must be just lights stuck on some huge glass sphere. The scientific minds at the time tried to explain the observed movements of the planets in these terms, but the explanations were complicated and clumsy. In the 14th century a Polish monk called Copernicus proposed that the sun was the centre of the known universe and that the earth and all the other planets revolved around it. He showed that this would better explain the observed movements of the planets, but this was just a hypothesis. It was also long before the invention of the telescope, so the naked eye was the only observing instrument. We could not know anything more than what we could see. At the beginning of the 17th century, the telescope was invented, but initially it was just thought of as a toy. Galileo had the idea of turning it on the sky to have a look at some familiar objects such as the moon and Jupiter. When he looked at the moon he saw mountains and craters and it was obvious that the moon was not just a light stuck on a glass sphere but another world. He looked at Jupiter and observed that the planet consisted of a large central object with four satellites revolving around it. He was immediately reminded of Copernicus idea and also became convinced that the universe consisted of the sun with the planets revolving around it. The other stars must be objects which were much more distant. In fact he found a method for estimating the distance of the moon, which came out to hundreds of thousands of kilometres away, not just a few kilometres up in the sky. He used the theory to predict the future movement and positions of the planets in the sky. But anyone who thought like this became the object of conservative and religious attack and persecution. There were also counter arguments: if the earth was whizzing through space, why werent we thrown violently around. Why does the earth feel so stationary and solid? And if the earth was moving, why didnt the fixed stars seem to move as well, by means of a perspective effect? Even with the solar-centric theory, still assuming the planets travelled in circular orbits, it did not predict the observed movement of the planets perfectly. Later in the 17th century a man called Kepler had the idea of abandoning the requirement of circular orbits for the planets. He formulated laws of planetary motion which allowed the planets to move in elliptical orbits. Now the theory predicted the movement of the planets much better, but he had no idea why the planets moved like this, or why they obeyed his laws.
Shortly after, Newton developed the theory of gravitation, first to explain the weight of objects on earth, but later generalized to hold that any two objects in the universe attracted each other with a gravitational force. He showed mathematically that this law theoretically accounted for Keplers laws and that the planets stayed in their orbits because of the gravitational attraction of the sun. Observation and theory now seemed to agree perfectly until in the 19th century it was noticed that the outermost known planet (Uranus) did not seem to be moving in its orbit exactly in the predicted way. It was hypothesized that this stray movement might be due to the gravitational pull of a further, unknown planet. Mathematicians, using the law of gravitation, predicted where this planet might be. Astronomers turned their telescopes, which were now of a much better technical quality, to this region of the sky and sure enough the planet Neptune was discovered. Everything now seemed fine, until in the early 20th century it was noticed that the innermost planet Mercury was not moving exactly according to plan. But there was no extra planet near Mercury to perturb its motion. What could be wrong? Around this time, Einstein was developing his theory of relativity, which predicted that in regions of intense gravity, such as in the near neighbourhood of the sun, Newtons laws were not exactly correct, and needed modification. When this theory was applied to the motion of Mercury, it successfully predicted the observed deviation of the planet from its classical position. During this time, thousands of minor planets asteroids have been discovered, and their observed movement agrees perfectly with the predictions of Newtons or Einsteins theories (otherwise we would never be able to keep track of them), We can predict the movement of even those asteroids which approach dangerously near the earth. So now we can account for and predict exactly the movement of planets around the sun, and by generalization, all objects in the universe. Or can we? [Read up about dark energy!]
Discuss the above account as a good example of the application of the scientific method, using concepts such as induction, and falsifiability.
2) Practical As you know, if you throw two dice together, you can get any score between 2 and 12. In any programming language that you know, or with a spreadsheet macro, write a program (using a random number function) which throws 2 dice 1000 times. Make the program record how many times you scored each value. Do your results agree with theory? Explain.

RM Tut 1

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

RM Tut 1

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

RM Tut 1

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

UNIVERSITY OF NAMIBIA DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 1 TUTORIAL AND EXERCISE 1 1) Read the following:

The story of the movement of the planets:

You might also like