Challenges in Measurements and A Survey of Safety
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Part 1: Procedures in the Physical Sciences: Challenges in Measurements
(3) specific challenges to making direct measurements in the fields of astronomy, chemistry, physics, or earth science. Describe how scientists have utilized indirect forms of measure to overcome these challenges.
and (2) of the most historically influential tools or techniques in the physical sciences. Explain how these techniques or tools work, and how they helped to advance our understanding of the physical sciences.
Part 2: Procedures in the Physical Sciences: A Survey of Safety
(1) hazard associated with research in the physical sciences. Discuss how protective gear or equipment might be used to mitigate the hazard, as well as its efficacy.
and to describe the ways in which advancements in the physical sciences might impact the safety of the global community. Assess any special considerations for regulating this research.
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Solution Summary
The challenges in measurements and a survey of safety is examined.
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With astronomy, the limitations of direct measurement are obvious: the objects we study are too far. We can't fly to Pluto (yet) to study it - but we can infer certain characteristics based on telescopic data. We can do more than visualize Pluto and track it across our skies to understand its orbit. We can see also how it bounces light from the Sun differently from other planets and from how we calculate it should if it was made of certain materials. This would then give us an idea of what Pluto is actually comprised of in terms of temperature, geological make-up etc.
In chemistry, studying atoms directly is difficult because of their size (although IBM recently demonstrated that they can manipulate and image singular atoms). It's also difficult to understand the interactions between molecules, or sometimes the identity and structure of molecules again because of their size. Such technologies as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) allow us to get a glimpse of certain things. For example, H-NMR allows us to garner information about how many hydrogens surround a certain carbon, and whether that carbon is surrounded by other things. This, along with infrared and mass spectroscopy allows us to elucidate the structure of molecules.
In physics, the bigger questions are those of quantum physics which is hard to study because they take place in very short time and size scales. We cannot detect them directly either - often we indirectly ...
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