[IAEP] More Galileo moments

[Edward Cherlin]

I'm listening to Radio Lab on public radio.

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R909051300

Audio Archive

Sat, Sep 5, 2009 -- 1:00 PM

Radio Lab: Yellow Fluff and Other Curious Encounters

One segment is a man recounting his scientific epiphany. When he was
13, his class was assigned to learn to graph an experiment on the
period of pendulums of different lengths. He was astonished to see the
dots form into a parabola, which he had learned about in algebra. How
can a pendulum understand algebra? And then, the next revelation. Is
this what people mean by scientific law?

Also Oliver Sacks talking about Mendeleev discovering the periodic
relations of the chemical elements, and Computer Scientist Erica
Carmel talking about an experience at the age of five, when she
decided to recreate a Disneyland ride at home with a basket of toy
eggs on a rope. Then she swung the basket on the rope, eventually all
the way around in a vertical circle, without the eggs falling out.
Then she did some experiments to make sure that gravity was still
working on the eggs when the basket wasn't moving. Later, at MIT, she
witnessed a similar demonstration of centripetal (NOT centrifugal)
force with a pail of water, but she loves the fact that she originally
discovered this herself.

There is more.

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://earthtreasury.org/