A $15.00 Discovery

The article titled Galileo's Little Spyglass Helped Spark a Scientific Revolution, written on March 7 2009 is an interesting article explaining how Venus is at its most interesting perspective in the sky during that time. During that time with only a $15.00 telescope you could see that Venus has turned into a thin crescent moon. Discovers like this one were made by Galileo with the same type of telescope. With that telescope he unlocked 2 millennia of philospohy and helped to spark a scientific revolution. It is amazing to think that with such a cheap telescope and a brilliant mind that Galileo discovered so things with a limited amount of resources. Just think about the advantages that scientists have today. With all of the millions and millions of dollars in funding how could scientists not make amazing discovers? They have the equipment that Galileo only dreamed of. With new discovers being made all the time I wonder what will be discovered next?

Mad Scientists and Evil Magicians in Popular Culture

Cultural representations of both mad scientists and evil magicians abound, as shown in the following twenty minute playlist.  But why?  What do scientists and magicians have in common?  Why is there a part of us that fears them?  If knowledge is power, is knowledge dangerous?  Does the average person feel excluded in some way from both scientific and magical expertise?  And what should we be wary of in the 21st century as we continue to push the boundaries of knowledge and redraw the line that separates what is possible from what is impossible?

WELCOME

Throughout this semester, our class studying Scientific Revolutions will create posts that elaborate upon course content, explore connections between disciplines, and enrich our discussions through links to outside sources such as images, articles and videos.

I hope you will approach this blog as an opportunity to show your unique perspective on the material we read and discuss, to be creative, and to personalize what we are doing in class in a way that interests and excites you.

A few things to remember:
1. You are writing for a very public audience (the world!).
2. Always annotate your blog appropriately by citing all sources and giving proper credit where credit is due.
3. Have fun.

Getting Started:
I will send an email to your Champlain address "inviting" you to blogger as an author on our blog. Once you sign up, you are ready to go.

If you need help posting, blogger can offer plenty of assistance. The general help page is found here. Information on how to post is located here. You can also find details on adding links or videos, and even directions on how to post a video from YouTube.

Important Instructions
In order to receive course credit for your blog postings, be sure to follow these instructions:

1. Include YOUR FULL FIRST AND LAST NAME IN THE LABELS for your post. This is how we will keep track of your postings. If your name does not appear, your post will not count.
2. Include a descriptive title.
3. Each post MUST INCLUDE a link to outside content: an article, a blog post, video, music, etc. The content is up to you but if you do not include a link, your post will not count.
4. Each post MUST INCLUDE proper citations for any content that is not uniquely your own. If you refer directly to course readings, you should not only indicate author and page numbers, but also a full MLA citation.