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What role does "common sense" play in the scientific method? |
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What is the basic distinction between the scientific method and other ways of looking at the natural world? |
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What is the difference between a hypothesis and a law? Between a law and a theory? |
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Scientific models do not correspond exactly to reality. Why are they nevertheless so useful? |
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What must be your location if the stars move across the sky in circles centered directly overhead? |
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In terms of what you would actually observe, what does it mean to say that the moon apparently moves eastward among the stars? |
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From observations of the moon, why would you conclude that it is a relatively small body revolving around the earth rather than another planet revolving around the sun? |
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8 | |
The sun, moon, and planets all follow approximately the same path from east to west across the sky; none of them is ever seen in the far northern or far southern sky. What does this suggest about the arrangement of these members of the solar system in space? |
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What is the basic difference between the ptolemaic and copernican models? Why is the ptolemaic model considered incorrect? |
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10 | |
Ancient astronomers were troubled by variations in the brightnesses of the various planets with time. Does the ptolemaic or the copernican model account better for these variations? |
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Compare the ptolemaic and copernican explanations for (a) the rising and setting of the sun; (b) the eastward drift of the sun relative to the stars that takes a year for a complete circuit; (c) the eastward drift of the moon relative to the stars that takes about 4 weeks for a complete circuit. |
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What do you think is the reason scientists use an ellipse rather than a circle as the model for a planetary orbit? |
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13 | |
The average distance from the earth to the sun is called the astronomical unit (AU). If an asteroid is 4 AU from the sun and its period of revolution around the sun is 8 years, does it obey Kepler's third law? |
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14 | |
How many fundamental forces are there? Which one is responsible for holding the moon to the earth? The earth to the sun? When you press against a wall, which force transmits your push to the wall? |
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What, if anything, would happen to the shape of the earth if it were to rotate on its axis faster than it does today? |
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What is the difference between spring and neap tides? Under what circumstances does each occur? |
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17 | |
The earth takes almost exactly 24 h to make a complete turn on its axis, so we might expect each high tide to occur 12 h after the one before. However, the actual time between high tides is 12 h 25 min. Can you account for the difference? |
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