science
Kids’ Science – Gravity For Beginners
Here’s a science activity for kids that offers basic exposure to density and the law of gravity. It also gives your child an opportunity to engage in the trial and error method of problem solving. It’s very simple and lots of fun.
You’ll be making a miniature version of hot air balloons. Each balloon should take about one minute to make. Your child will love helping to put the hot air balloons together.
Here’s what to do:
Pick up helium balloons from your community party supply store. You’ll need one balloon for each participant.
For the basket part of the hot air balloon, use a paper cup or 12″ x 12″ felt square. If you use a paper cup, tape three pieces of string to the top of the cup, and then tie the string to the base of the balloon. If you use a felt square, tie each of the four corners and attach those to the base of the balloon. (If you want to go a step further, for a more realistic looking basket cut off the bottom four inches of an empty bag of specialty coffee and rinse it out-the material is perfectly suited for this activity.)
Your living room is the perfect location to get started.
The objective: fill the basket with just enough household items to cause the balloon to hover for ten seconds without touching the ceiling. The items might include marbles, buttons, bottle caps and Q-Tips. Put these items in a bowl for selection. Keep a pair of scissors handy–as your child fine tunes the density it may become necessary to cut a Q-Tip in half.
Consider the following variation: put all the items in a line for selection. Take turns selecting one item until each person has ten. Place items into balloon baskets and launch the balloons. The objective is to have your balloon float slowest to the ceiling. In order to improve results, each person may exchange one of their items for a new item. Re-launch the balloons. Continue the process of exchanging one item after each launch. Keep experimenting until one player causes a balloon to hover for ten seconds.
There are many other variations to this science activity that you can pursue on your own (–for example, log the difference in items used from one day to the next as the balloons lose helium). Regardless of how you go about it, this activity will give your child an opportunity to engage in trial and error problem solving while gaining basic exposure to density and the law of gravity. You may also find it surprisingly adept at bringing out the fidget and tinker nature of parents. Have fun!
Science, Religion and Philosophy
In our modern world it seems as if natural science is completely incompatible with religion and (to a large extend) philosophy. In spite of some imaginative scientists trying to soften and modify the scientific community’s view of the world as a huge machine, the general impression is that a war between two different world views is taking place. On one hand the scientific view of the world as pure matter without any kind of spirit (and certainly not any kind of divine purpose or interference) and on the other hand the religious or philosophic views where spirit (and in many cases also some kind of divine power) plays an important role in our whole existence.
Why does it have to be like that? Albert Einstein, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all times, said: “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.” If one of the most esteemed scientists in modern times found it necessary to combine the two subjects then, why does the vast majority of scientists and religious representatives continue their seemingly endless fights?
It is evident that natural science explains a lot about nature and our universe. It is a fact that without science we would not have been able to create our modern civilizations with complex infrastructures enabling us to travel by land, air and sea. We wouldn’t have computers, cell phones and internet. Modern hospitals, institutions and organizations would not exist…
But the fact that natural science has helped us immensely in understanding the nature surrounding us doesn’t necessarily mean that we can find all answers that way. Our consciousness is still a mystery to natural science because it can only be experienced as a first-hand, subjective experience!
On the other hand, most religions are based on very old information that was originally given to people much less educated than the majority of people today. Also, it might very well be distorted by misinterpretations and misunderstandings during centuries. Nevertheless, in spite of all the wisdom contained in these religions it would have been impossible for anybody to explain scientific laws to people at that time. Remember that until a few centuries ago everybody was convinced that the earth was flat and also the center of the universe!
To me, modern philosophy should include knowledge from both natural science and religion. If scientists on one hand and religious people on the other hand are reluctant to change their views (maybe partly because it would force them to change their whole personal identity), philosophers ought to be seeking the truth without prejudice.
I also think that philosophy should include a total world view. In spite of the standpoint of existentialism that the individual has total freedom and responsibility to create his values alone, I find it very important to have a total personal world view.
Without a fundamental and comprehensive world view we are (in spite of the evolutionary principles) lonely beings in a world of chaos, coincidence and injustice.
HDD players: Entertainment to its full
With the rapid technology advancement in the field of electronics, life seems to be more simplified as luxuries are becoming less expensive and more reasonable. Today there is a very vast arena of electronic products that are developed to cope with the changing technology advancements. The HDD Players is an important electronic product which is commonly used these days. HDD media Players are those products which combines the hard drive enclosure with both hardware as well as software criterions and play the music videos, audio songs and photographs in home entertainment systems such as home theatres. This is a special type of media player that uses hard disk for storage of data such as, photos, videos, music files and various data.
The main advantage of HDD Players is its capabile memory to store and handle all types of files such as MP3 files, DivX, .JPEG images, MPEG-2 and AVI video files. It allows the users to eliminate the usage of a separate computer to play all those files and thereby helps them to use the single device for various purposes. The HDD Players are compact and highly affordable to all users. Usually these devices will have small hardware display and sometimes it can be made with these displays. Remote control with infrared rays is used to navigate between the files along with visual feedback is being produced through the device connected to player.
The HDD Players are getting more popular due to its compactness and affordability. These media players are contemporary and have quickly replaced the conventional VCD, DVD, video disk player and mobile bard drivers. The media players can also be used to record along with its playing capacity. Thus HDD Players facilitates the users to record playing program and to view it later. Hence people can watch their favorite TV shows, live music concerts either on TV or on the personal computer. There are many HDD media players available that are affordable to ordinary people as well.
The HDD Players has become a great entertainment tool for people to enjoy their favorite shows without missing. The HDD media player plays the movies, videos, audios and so on without any hassles of replacing the disc on a DVD player or CD player. This media player is better than DVD player as it is easy to carry, small in size and also functions more powerful. The memory capacity of media players varies between 80GB to 600GB. The HDD Players can transmit some high definition signals over to the monitor for display. USB ports are used to connect the HDD media players with eth computer or even to a notebook. Large number of people is utilizing the enormous benefits provided by this HDD media player.