GALILEO :: essays research papers

Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 to Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia degli Ammannati in Pisa, Italy. His father, Vincenzo, was a musician. Galileo was the first of six children (though some people believe seven). His family was not rich but they were of nobility. His family moved to Florence in the early 1570’s. Galileo never married but he did have a brief relationship with Marina Gamba. He met her on one of his trips to Venice. She lived with Galileo and bore three children to him. His two daughters, Virginia and Livia were sent to convents. In 1610 Galileo moved to Florence where he took a position at The Court of the Medici family. He left his son, Vincenzio with Marina. In 1613 Marina married Giovanni Bartoluzzi. Vincenzio joined his father in Florence. In 1581 Galileo went to study at the University of Pisa. His father hoped he would study medicine there. Galileo did not study medicine there but he did study the pendulum. According to legend Galileo watched a suspended lamp swing back and forth in the cathedral of Pisa. Galileo did not make his most notable discovery about the pendulum until 1602. He discovered that the time in which a pendulum swings back and forth did not depend on the arc or isochronism of the swing. At the University of Piza Galileo studied physics. He mainly studied and eventually disproved Aristotle approch on physics. Aristotlians believed that heavier objects fell through a medium faster than lighter objects. Galileo disproved the idea by asserting that all objects (no matter the density) fell at the same rate in a vacuum. To be sure of this Galileo performed many experiments. In most he dropped objects from a certain height. In an early experiment Galileo rolled two balls down a slightly sloped hill and then he would determine their positions after equal time intervals. He then wrote a book about his discoveries called De Muto which means â€Å"On Motion†. In 1592 Galileo was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Padua. While there he often visited a place called the Arsenal where Venetian ships were docked. Galileo was always interested in mechanicle devices and this was the perfect place to study them. While at the Arsenal Galileo became interested in nautical devices especially the sector and ship building. In 1593 Galileo was faced with the problem involving the placement of oars in the galleys.

Culture War Essay

Politics play an important role in the overall situation of a country. The political set-up of a state especially in terms of the type of government, political parties, and even the political bickering that exist are vital in creating and implementing laws. This is clearly exemplified in a democratic type of government wherein various parties that have different advocacies, view points and stands on various issues are present. In line with this, the newly elected president of the United States of America, President Barack Obama is trying to pass a bipartisan â€Å"Stimulus Package† in the Congress. Bipartisanship usually takes place in a two-party system wherein two major parties dominate the election in all levels of the government. Bipartisanship also happens when these two major parties put aside their differences and collaborate with each other. In this paper, it will be argued that bipartisanship is dead. This argument is based on three pieces of evidence that give conclusive results that will make it clear that bipartisanship is no longer applicable in the United States. First, according to Patrick Joseph â€Å"Pat† Buchanan, a renowned American political commentator, author, columnist, politician, broadcaster, and senior advisor to three previous U. S. presidents, â€Å"There is a religious war going on in this country [United States], a cultural war as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself, for this was is for the soul of America. † He delivered this statement during the 1992 Republican National Convention wherein he further explained that this cultural war is a displacement of classic economic conflicts that are caused by newly emergent moral and religious ones. Furthermore, the kind of war that he is referring to is said to be observable in the result of the recent elections wherein there is only a marginal difference of within 2 points. However, this kind of outcome does not give convincing result that there is indeed competitiveness among Americans and that they are for or against one major party. Closely divided votes do not mean deeply divided votes because this does not identify whether a certain group of people hate the other or they are just merely voting out of random. Moreover, it is difficult to identify if Americans only follow two political perspectives that are based on the two major parties that exist in the country. This is due to the fact that the media is not normal in the country. Media incentives are often used in order for those people involved in this field to sensationalize a particular issue. In this sense, not only is it difficult to identify the real stand of the American people when it comes to issues because the media could also influence the people’s way of thinking in order for them to take problems as either black and or in variations. Second, through the article entitled â€Å"From Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America,† the writer Morris P. Fiorina, debunks the observation that Americans are highly polarized especially in terms of cultural or social issues. He also challenges the idea that this polarization has heightened the concept of partisanship in the electorate and Washington by arguing that it is the political elites who are becoming more polarized. Morris stated that due to the fact that political elites, especially the candidates for office, are more polarized in terms of party and ideological lines and they also manipulate the choices available to their voters. As a result, it established a distinction of the electorate, as well as a deceitful appearance that there is indeed polarization in the mass public (Fiorina, 2005). Moreover, in the study conducted by Fiorina, he compared the voting behavior and the position of Americans when it comes to specific issues that define culture war including gun control laws, abortion, sexual orientation, sexual discrimination, and others. He used the blue and red states wherein the blue are the recognized Democrat states and the red are the Republican states. The result of the study shows that states are similar in many instances. This is proven by the data which identified that four out of ten voters in both red and blue states agreed that migration should decrease; as well as seven among the ten deemed that English should be the official language of the United States. Moreover, in terms of issues that are considered part of the culture war, differences are still observable. Nevertheless, results give proof that there is a similarity in the stand of Americans when it comes to these issues. The comparison of the blue and red states show that there is many similarities and some notable differences but very little variation for a culture between states to exist (Fiorina, 2005). Third, a recent survey deals with Obama Ratings by Party Identification that illustrates independent parties and other parties that do not fall as either as a Democrat or Republican parties. The Inauguration Week showed that 90% positive ratings came from the Democrats and also a substantial 67% came from the independent and other parties. On the other hand, only 42. 7% positive ratings came from the Republicans. Similar results is also seen during the post-inauguration week wherein 87. 3% from the Democrats and 61. 3% from independent and other parties have positive remarks for Obama while only 32. 7% from the Republicans feel the same way. In this sense, it can be clearly seen that independent and other parties also have an important role when it comes to supporting any political actions that Obama will make. Moreover, this also signifies that Americans are not simply polarized into two major parties. The discussions above of the three pieces of evidence clearly identifies that bipartisanship is dead in the United States. Bipartisanship is no longer applicable because most Americans have more similarities when it comes to important issues even those that are under the cultural or social realm. The stand point of Americans is no longer identified in just two opposite poles. Rather, the political elite and irresponsible media of the country are the ones responsible for shaping the United States’ society to be such. In reality, states that are often identified as either red or blue do not really have much distinction when it comes to the vital concerns of the country because they have more similar stands than differences. Being the case, bipartisanship is not applicable in a society that is not or no longer polarized. Reference Fiorina, M. P. (2005). Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

The Bible and Archaeology

An important step forward in scientific archaeological research, and a 19th-century outgrowth of the previous centurys Enlightenment  was the search for the truth of the events written about in the ancient historical accounts of the past. The main truth of the Bible, Torah, Koran, and the Buddhist sacred texts among many others is (of course) not a scientific one but a truth of faith and religion. The roots of the scientific study of archaeology are deeply planted in the establishment of the boundaries of that truth. Is the Bible Fact or Fiction? This is one of the most common questions I get asked as an archaeologist and it is one for which I have yet to find a good answer. And yet the question is at the absolute heart of archaeology, central to the growth and development of archaeology, and it is the one that gets more archaeologists into trouble than any other. And, more to the point, it brings us back to the history of archaeology. Many if not most citizens of the world are naturally curious about ancient texts. After all, they form the basis of all human culture, philosophy, and religion. As discussed in the earlier parts of this series, at the end of the Enlightenment, many archaeologists began actively searching for the cities and cultures described in the available ancient texts and histories, such as Homer and the Bible, Gilgamesh, Confucian texts, and the Vedic manuscripts. Schliemann sought Homers Troy, Botta sought Nineveh, Kathleen Kenyon sought Jericho, Li Chi sought An-Yang, Arthur Evans at Mycenae, Koldewey at Babylon, and Woolley at Ur of the Chaldees. All of these scholars and more sought archaeological events in the ancient texts. Ancient Texts and Archaeological Studies But using ancient texts as the basis for historical investigation was—and still is—fraught with peril in any culture: and not just because the truth is hard to parse out. Governments and religious leaders have vested interests in seeing that religious texts and nationalistic myths remain unchanged and unchallenged—other parties might learn to see the ancient ruins as blasphemous. Nationalistic mythologies demand that there is a special state of grace for a particular culture, that the ancient texts are received wisdom, that their specific country and people are the center of the creative world. No Planet-Wide Floods When early geological investigations proved without a doubt that there was no planet-wide flood as described in the Old Testament of the Bible, there was a great cry of outrage. Early archaeologists fought against and lost battles of this sort time and again. The results of David Randal-McIvers excavations at Great Zimbabwe, an important trading site in southeastern Africa, were suppressed by the local colonial governments who wanted to believe that the site was Phoenician in derivation and not African. The beautiful effigy mounds found throughout North America by Euroamerican settlers were wrongly attributed to either the mound builders or a lost tribe of Israel. The fact of the matter is that ancient texts are renditions of ancient culture which may be partly reflected in the archaeological record and partly will not be—not fiction nor fact, but culture. Better Questions So, lets not ask if the Bible is true or false. Instead, lets ask a series of different questions: Did the places and cultures that are mentioned in the Bible and the other ancient texts exist? Yes, in many cases, they did. Archaeologists have found evidence for many of the locations and cultures mentioned in the ancient texts.Did the events that are described in these texts happen? Some of them did; archaeological evidence in the form of physical evidence or supporting documents from other sources can be found for some of the battles, the political struggles, and the building and collapse of cities.Did the mystical things that are described in the texts occur? Its not my area of expertise, but if I were to hazard a guess, if there were miracles that occurred, they wouldnt leave archaeological evidence.Since the places and the cultures and some of the events that are described in these texts happened, shouldnt we just assume that the mysterious parts also happened? No. Not any more than since Atlanta burned, Scarlett OHara really was dumped by Rhett Butler. There are so many ancient texts and stories about how the world began and many are at variance with one another. From a global human standpoint, why should one ancient text be more accepted than any other? The mysteries of the Bible and other ancient texts are just that: mysteries. It is not, and never has been, within the archaeological purview to prove or disprove their reality. That is a question of faith, not science.