We took a brief look at ideas about the lost continent of Atlantis.  Based on the material we have covered, what are your conclusions.  Was it real?  Was it story inspired by actual events?  Was it a cautionary tale or critique of ancient Athens?  What kind of evidence would you use to support your conclusion?

For those of you who participated in any one of our science buddies trips to Roberts elementary, please take a moment to write some of your thoughts/impressions/experiences relating to the program.  Thank you.

You have just seen a video about your generation. Please reflect on what each speaker had to say and write your thoughts below.

Using information from previous posts and internet research, please discuss other explanations for the evidence presented in the “Apollo 11 conspiracy video” that may indicate that the evidence presented in the video is either erroneous or may actually prove that the Apollo lunar landings were real.. In particular, feel free to comment on some of the missing “inferences” from the evidence present in the video.

In our previous discussions, we considered the evidence presented by the conspiracy supporters. But as we will see, they are asking us to accept more than they are actually saying. Think of the stars example we discussed in class with the differences between an inference and a observation. In that, the unspoken inference was that cameras should be able to take pictures of stars. As we found out, and you can check for yourself, it is difficult to get pictures of stars even with the best of conditions because the light coming from stars is just too dim. The pictures of stars you see are taken with special camera settings and film (for non-digital cameras) (see this link). Think of some of the other claims in the video and describe how that claim may have had a “hidden inference”.

In the video “Conspiracy Theory – The Apollo Moon Landings”, the show’s producers cite a variety of pieces of physical evidence that we didn’t actually land on the moon. I’d like you to list a piece of evidence presented in the video and comment on how it supports or refutes the claim that we never traveled to the moon. I’d also like you to comment on some of the responses to this post with additional discussion points, questions, or observations relevant to this issue of whether or not we landed on the moon.

For those of who are working with the batteries and bulbs article, I’d like to reveiw the article and respond to this entry with a post in which you identify one of the “rules” that circuits follow.  Ideally each rule is different.

Arnold Arons notes “the Greeks endowed bodies with the properties of ‘gravity’ and ‘levity’, representing built-in desires or tendencies of the bodies to seek the center of the Earth or to rise toward the celestial domain”. While contemporary physics relies on a different explanation, it is clear that the Greeks would have certainly endowed a modern device like a helium balloon with “much levity”. Imagine placing a helium balloon in the center of a room, tying the balloon’s string to a chair so that it would float in the middle of the a room. Now imagine removing all of the air from the room, creating a vacuum chamber. Would the helium balloon float higher, stay at its original level, or sink to the ground in such an environment? Explain.

Arthur C Clarke once wrote that “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong”. There are certainly things that previous generations thought were impossible but is there anything today that is and will always be impossible?

When someone asks you how old you are, what do you tell them? The answer may not be as straight forward as you think. How would you respond to the claim that ‘most of you’ is 13.7 billion years old?