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University of Maryland - Spring 2004 Instructions -- see Study Questions for Topic III. Note that these are numbered from 1 to 80 but some numbers are not used. Be sure you have all 4 pages (2 sheets printed on both sides). |
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1. Identify: Daniel Bernoulli. 2. What was Dalton's formula for the water molecule? What was Avogadro's formula? Explain why they were different. 3. Why was it considered unlikely, by chemists at the beginning of the 19th century, that two atoms of the same element could form a molecule? 4. How did Dalton estimate the atomic weight of oxygen relative to hydrogen? Why was his result wrong by a factor of more than 2 or more? 5. Discuss and compare Dalton's and Avogadro's ideas about gases and atoms, and their roles in the history of science. 6. Why was the concept of valence useful in the development of organic chemistry? How did benzene present a challenge to the validity of this concept? What theory later resolved the benzene problem? 7. What is the Periodic Law in chemistry? How does its history support Popper's Principle? 8. Identify: gallium. Why is it important in the history of science? 9. One often hears that in science, theories are tested by experiment. Give 3 examples of experiments that were found to be wrong because they disagreed with a theory. What was the theory? 10. Discuss the introduction of the concepts of randomness, probability, and indeterminism into science, and how they changed our understanding of the world. 11. How did Newton retard the adoption of the kinetic theory of gases? 12. How is the method of "grading on the curve" related to the kinetic theory of gases? 13. Who was the first scientist to publish a good estimate of the diameter of a molecule? What theory did he use to make this estimate? How did it illustrate a famous statement of Lord Kelvin? 14. How did the specific heats of diatomic molecules pose a difficulty for the kinetic theory of gases before 1900? 15. Discuss X-rays and their connections with modern physics, biology, and fin de siècle society. 16. What is the "reversibility paradox"? How did Boltzmann resolve it? 17. Identify: Maxwell's Demon. What is his task? 18. What is the "recurrence paradox"? How did Boltzmann resolve it? 19. Who established the existence of electrons as particles? When? Why is it somewhat misleading to say he "discovered the electron"? 20. According to a frequently-told story, when someone asked Ernest Rutherford how he always managed to be on top of the wave of progress in physics, he replied: "because I make the wave!" Discuss the validity of this claim. 21. Describe 2 ways the charge of the electron could be estimated before 1920. 22. Identify: cathode rays. 23. What was the experiment that finally convinced most physicists to accept the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation? Who performed it? When? 24. Identify: Marie Curie. 25. Discuss the validity of Lord Kelvin's statement about numerical measurement in the light of the history of science as presented in this course. 26. For many years it was believed that transmutation of one element into another was just a fantasy of the alchemists and could never be observed in the laboratory. Who were the two scientists who first demonstrated that it actually occurs? When did they do it? 27. How did the atomic physicists rescue Darwin's theory of evolution from the criticism that not enough time was available for the slow process of evolution? 28. What was the experiment that revealed to Rutherford that the atom is mostly empty space with most of its mass concentrated in a tiny nucleus at the center? Who did the experiment? 29. What is "Planck's Principle" in the sociology of science? Give an example and a counter-example. 30. Describe Bohr's 1913 model of the hydrogen atom. How was it similar to Newton's model of the solar system? How was it different? Why was it (temporarily) accepted despite its obvious defects? 31. Identify: Louis de Broglie. 32. What is "wave mechanics"? Who proposed it? When? 33. What was the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) objection to quantum mechanics. How was it refuted by Aspect's experiment? 34. Discuss the statement "every time you take a breath of air, you swallow one of the molecules that came from Julius Caesar's last breath" from the viewpoint of quantum mechanics. 35. Douglas Vakoch, a researcher at the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) project, pointed out that there is a basic fallacy in the attempts to communicate with civilizations in other solar systems by sending them diagrams of atomic structure and DNA. "This implies, he says, that different cultures with different histories and physical forms will all converge on the same scientific description of reality, and that they will have passed through the same stages of scientific development to get there. It is possible, he argues, that extraterrestrials could invent radio technology -- the one indispensable entrance requirement to galactic society -- without ever developing the concept of an atom or of a DNA molecules." (New York Times, 5 March 2002.) State and defend your opinion on this question. 36. How did Heitler and London explain (qualitatively) why atoms form molecules? 37. Identify: Satyendranath Bose. 38. What is Heisenberg's "Uncertainty Principle"? Why might it be more properly called an "Indeterminacy Principle"? 39. What was Dirac's idea that was so outrageous it almost had to be right? How was it confirmed? 40. Discuss the history of quantum theory from 1900 to 1935, including the major ideas and experiments, the relevant facts from 19th century physics and chemistry, and philosophical issues about its interpretation. 41. What was Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin's discovery about the Sun, and how did it influence modern theories of the origin of the solar system? 42. Identify: Viktor Safronov. 43. What was Henrietta Leavitt's discovery about Cepheids and how did it influence modern theories of the universe? 44. How did Hubble provide the basis for the expanding universe theory? What was one reason why he himself doubted the validity of that theory? 45. How did Bohr, Born, Heisenberg and Schrödinger change our understanding of the world? Is there a real distinction between "the world" and "our understanding" of it? Your essay should include (but not be limited to) Cartesian and wave-particle dualisms, indeterminism, the Copenhagen Interpretation, and the cat paradox. 46. What was Yukawa's explanation of the force between protons and neutrons, needed to hold the nucleus together? What discovery seemed to confirm his theory? 47. Who were the three scientists who developed the Big Bang theory? What was the discovery that persuaded most astronomers to accept it? 48. What was the Steady State theory? How does its history pertain to Popper's Principle and Planck's Principle? 49. Why did European and American scientists decide to develop an atomic bomb for the U.S. in the 1940s? Why did Heisenberg, who stayed in Germany, not develop an atomic bomb for Hitler? 50. Discuss the role of physical laws/theories and astronomical observations in the history of theories of the origin of the solar system from 1796 to 1980. 51. Prout's Hypothesis may be divided into two parts: (a) a basic assumption about the nature of matter, and (b) a prediction about properties of matter that can be determined by experiment. How valid are these two parts according to modern science? 52. What episode in the first half of the 20th century suggested that the Law of Conservation of [Mass-]Energy had become so firmly established that no experiment could refute it? How did a later experiment vindicate confidence in the Law? 53. Why or how does the sun shine, according to Hans Bethe? 54. Identify: Lise Meitner. 55. Does a scientific theory have to explain all the known facts in its domain in order to be considered valid? Discuss the history of two theories (or laws), one in physics and one in chemistry, each of which was widely accepted by scientists before there was a plausible explanation of why its basic assumptions should themselves be valid. 56. How did Maxwell's electromagnetic theory help save Britain from defeat by Hitler? 57. Identify: Edward Teller. 58. Identify: J. Robert Oppenheimer. 59. Who was the first person to "see" an atom? When and how did he do it? 60. Discuss the question, "Why does the 6C12 nucleus have a resonance that allows it to be easily formed by fusion of three -particles?," without using any information beyond what is in the Physics text. Is it a scientific question? Would it undermine our current view of the world to consider it a scientific question? 61. Give an example of an opposed pair of thematic concepts and describe how scientists historically have oscillated between the two members of that pair. 62. Explain the difference between "themata" and "style of thought" in science; give one example of a thema that belonged to two different styles of thought. 63. (No question) 64. (No question) 65. Did science and technology win World War II? 66. (No question) 70. Did the atomic and hydrogen bombs (indirectly) prevent World War III? 71. (No question) 72. (No question) 73. (No question) 74. (No question) 75. Discuss the contribution of the "hypothetical modeling" style of thought to progress in scientific understanding of the real world. 76. (No question) 77. (No question) 78. (No question) 79. (No question) 80. Discuss the following statement of Dirac on the basis of your knowledge of the history of science: "It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment. ... It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has a really good insight, then one is on a sure line of progress. If there is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly taken into account and that will get cleared up with further developments of the theory." |