Universal Gravitation

Lab 2.4: Universal Gravitation Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to determine the value of the Universal Gravitational constant experimentally. Design: Using an apparatus similar to the one used by Cavendish two fixed masses will be brought close to two mobile masses which are attached to a horizontal rod that is suspended by the torsion wire. The distance between the masses is varied and the angular movement of the mobile masses will be related to the tensional force. Procedure: 1.) Adjust mobile masses so that the laser pointer strikes the scale at zero. 2.) Move the fixed masses into place. 3.) Allow the mobile masses to reach equilibrium. 4.) Record the distance. 5.) Determine the force from the scale. 6.) Tabulate your data and repeat. Data: Mobile Mass: 3.125 kg Fixed Mass: 9.588 kg The Force VS the Distance, the Reciprocal of the Distance and the Square Reciprocal of the Distance Force (N) x 10-6 Distance (cm) Reciprocal of Distance (cm) Square Reciprocal of Distance (cm) 9.9850 .00 .000 .000 4.9963 2.00 0.500 0.250 2.2206 3.00 0.333 0.111 .2491 4.00 0.250 0.063 0.7994 5.00 0.200 0.040 0.5551 6.00 0.167 0.028 0.4079 7.00 0.143 0.020 0.3123 8.00 0.125 0.016 0.2467 9.00 0.111 0.012 0.1999 0.00 0.100 0.010 0.1652 1.00 0.091 0.008 0.1388 2.00 0.083 0.007 0.1183 3.00 0.077 0.006 0.1020 4.00 0.071

  • Word count: 424
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Physics
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TOK Essay

Human life and human personality have been studied thoroughly throughout many years, but there are different ways of studying these aspects of humanity. Human personality may be defined as the pattern of collective character, behavioral, temperamental, emotional, and mental traits of a person. One way to analyze human life and personality is through the use of scientific psychology. Psychology is the science that seeks to understand behavior and mental processes, and to apply that understanding in the service of human welfare. This is an unbiased observation of the human personality and life. The other method of analyzing human life and personality is through novels. A Novel is a book-length fictional story usually involving relationships between characters, their emotional crises and events concerning them. Novels usually have meanings involved in them that the author is trying to make the reader aware of. The extent in which we learn more from novels than from scientific psychology is due to the emotional attachment from the author to pinpoint useful meanings of life and human personality, while scientific psychology has no emotional connection with these meanings. Although psychology has a thorough insight of the mind and mental processes, it does not bind meanings to its analysis. Novels supply the reader with a lot of information about human life and human personality.

  • Word count: 1305
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Theory of Knowledge
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What is History

Lobo, Patrick Period 4 What is History? History is the way that each individual person views the past. History can be different according to the culture that one lives in, the area that they live in, and many other factors that separate every human being apart. History is not something that is finite, and though it may be written in stone by cavemen, in the figurative interpretation it holds no truth. History is always changing and even the most important events in history and still disputed and depending on whose eyes you look the view will change. The best way to study history is to look at it from as many perspectives as possible and understand who is writing the history to give us insight into how they see the world. History is more of a story about people's lives rather than an objective description of events. Even the things that we feel certain transpired in the past one way, may have been way off from our expectations. The only way to truly know history is to actually live it. Otherwise you just have to take the words of all those who documented their lives and, like a puzzle, put all these stories together to see the big picture. Without history we would end up just like animals with no memory of past events. The only thing that separates us from the rest of living creatures is history. Voltaire said, "History is the lie commonly agreed upon." This quote truly

  • Word count: 520
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: History
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What is history?

What is history? ‘Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.’ This ominous statement, authored by Spanish philosopher George Santayana in 1905, is a fine testimony to the power of history. Whether he refers to individuals or nations, Santayana points out the most essential element of history: remembrance. Where would we be without the ability to remember? As human beings, we gain a sense of collective identity from our past. History has chronicled our colourful centuries, placed our achievements and errors on record. If every adult analyzed the history of their parents’ generation, we might well live in a world where we didn’t make the same mistakes twice. The job of the historian has always been challenging. Determining what constitutes a historical fact – as well as choosing the facts relevant to the situation - is far from easy. But in the words of E. H. Carr, praising a historian for getting the facts right is like ‘praising an architect for using well seasoned timber in his building – a necessary condition of his work, but not its essential function’. Facts no longer speak for themselves. Anybody can rearrange them to align with a certain viewpoint. It is the historian who decides what facts to present and in what context. The power of selection rests with him, and so his position is one of great responsibility. As a subject, history

  • Word count: 504
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: History
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What is a human being?

Philosophy Core Theme: What is a human being? The comic shown raises a provocative concept of freedom and moral obligation that has been debated by philosophers throughout the ages. There is a significant connection between freedom and moral obligation as it is generally believed that we are responsible for our moral actions that we freely perform. If one commits an immoral act freely, they should be subjected to blame; however, if one was forced into committing the immoral act by external forces they should be exempt from any blame or punishment. Praise or blame should only apply to actions which have been made as a result of free will. The belief that we are all free to make our own decision in life is commonly known as Libertarianism. Libertarianism claims that all human beings are autonomous moral agents and as a result we are fully responsible for our actions. On the other hand, Hard Determinism believes that all of our actions are pre-determined by an external force; therefore, free will is immaterial as it is merely an illusion created by the contenting thought of having the liberty of making our own choices. The cartoon shows a man walking past a door with a sign saying "Philosophy Dept. Trespassers Will Be". This can be interpreted in different ways; firstly, it can illustrate Libertarianism as the sign is an incomplete sentence stating "Trespassers will be..."

  • Word count: 930
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Misc
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War in Iraq

War in Iraq The present day Iraqi crises, has its roots in a situation that began some years back. At the time of Saddam Hussein and U.S president George Bush the father, Iraq invaded and occupied the state of Kuwait. As a result, the United States and a number of other countries of the world went to war against Iraq, and liberated Kuwait from it occupation. They did not however topple Saddam Hussein or his government, which left the bad tension between Iraq (Saddam Hussein) and the United States. A few years later, George Bush the son was elected president, and clearly, on the issue of Iraq, had still a negative feeling after the attack of September 11th, and the resulting "War on terrorism" that America waged against Afghanistan and others, President Bush's eyes turned to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Accusing Iraq of harboring "Qaeda Terrorists" and developing weapons of mass destruction, the U.S and its allies managed to pass a U.N Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. This led to the complete wiping out of Iraq's army and infrastructure. Today Iraq does not really exist as a unified state. It does not have a central authority that governs all of the country, even though it has a so-called government in Baghdad. It does not have an army or a police force that is capable of keeping law in order. Its infrastructure is totally destroyed, and

  • Word count: 671
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: History
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"Wars frequently begin ten years before the first shot is fired." To what extent does this statement explain the outbreak of the First World War?

HISTORY ESSAY "Wars frequently begin ten years before the first shot is fired." To what extent does this statement explain the outbreak of the First World War? World War I (WWI) is among the most destructive wars that mankind had ever witnessed and it is extremely important for us to understand why such a crime to humankind could have been committed so that we could prevent history from "repeating itself". The main objective of this essay is to assess the statement that "wars frequently begin ten years before the first shot is fired" in accounting for the outbreak of WWI. To have a complete, thorough understanding of the outbreak of WWI, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the background causes which made the war much more likely to happen. The best starting point should be in 1871 with the unification of Germany under Bismarck and the rapid rise of Germany as a major power in Europe. Germany had one of the best armies in the world at that time and furthermore , its size was swelling which created fear and suspicion among its neighbours, which in turn created tension among countries in Europe. Coupled with industrialization at lightning speed, Germany seemed to disrupt the balance of power in Europe, putting her under much attention of other European powers. However, the big change came when Kaiser Wilhelm II got into power because he advocated the

  • Word count: 885
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: History
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What is it about theories in the human sciences and natural sciences that make them convincing

TOK Essay 2/2011 Question: What is it about the theories in the human sciences and natural sciences that makes them convincing? Name: Valerie Ng Suying TOK group: P1b (Mr Eric Lau) Index Number: 20 It is widely assumed that natural and human sciences provide a reliable form of knowledge about the world, whether about natural phenomena or the behavior of individuals or a society. Statistics have shown that people have a high level of confidence in the scientific community. Scientists and their scientific theories are usually placed above leaders of other institutions such as business leaders, religious leaders, or elected officials (americanprogress.org). However, scientific theories are not completely certain and may not always provide an accurate view of the world. They are fallible and are subjected to change. So what is it in the theories of the human and natural sciences that makes them so convincing? Why do people have such high regard for them to the extent that some have begun to take them for granted as being true? This essay will attempt to discuss theories in the natural sciences followed by theories in the human sciences. To begin, it is important to define the key terms, namely 'scientific theories' and 'convincing'. Scientific theories are a set of logical explanatory statements with well-supported evidence that explain observations and can be used to

  • Word count: 2037
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Theory of Knowledge
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What is it about theories in the human sciences and natural sciences that makes them convincing?

What is it about theories in the human sciences and natural sciences that makes them convincing? Our lives are becoming more reliant on scientific theories and we have placed scientist leaders above many other business and political leaders. We take scientific theories as ‘the dominant cognitive paradigm’ of knowledge’ and we see an idea to be ‘definitely true’ should it be ‘scientifically proven’. This raises the knowledge issue: to what extent is scientific theories held in a higher regard in relation to others? And to what extent do these areas of knowledge - natural and social sciences - use observation, evidence and the scientific method - in establishing scientific theories? Finally, we ought to ask to what extent can we depend on scientific method for true, reliable, and ‘convincing’ theories? I define a ‘convincing’ theory as one that is capable of overriding opposition and effectively earning the trust of others. As Feynman defines, the premise of science is based on inductivism, where the scientific method of observations, reasons and experiments ensures controllability, measurability and repeatability. Deductive logic is key to the theories in the natural sciences, its apparently watertight syllogism allows a claim to be undermined and disputed; hence, a scientific claim is characterized to "lend itself to scrutiny and rigorous testing…

  • Word count: 1660
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Theory of Knowledge
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Why did Stalin rather than Trotsky emerge as the leader of the USSR in 1929?

Why did Stalin rather than Trotsky emerge as the leader of the USSR in 1929? At the time of Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin’s political future was hanging by a thread. He was, in the opinion of historian Stephen Lee, ‘the least impressive of all the candidates for succession’, and Leon Trotsky was regarded as the most likely emerging leader of the USSR. However, within five years, Stalin had outmanoeuvred a series of political opponents to become the absolute leader of the Soviet State, a feat accomplished by his unscrupulous politics and propagandist actions, his facade of moderateness and temporarily centrist stance on key issues like the NEP and the spread of the Revolution, as well as exploitation of the broad power base built up by Stalin throughout his political career to manipulate majorities. However he could not have succeeded in his quest for leadership without a series of misjudgements on Trotsky’s part, such as his failure to canvas support for himself amongst the Bolshevik elite, and most crucially his underestimation of the often pragmatic but distinctly un-idealistic ‘comrade card index’. Despite not playing a key role in the October Revolution of 1917, Stalin had steadily built up his reputation in the Bolshevik party through his administrative work and holding of key positions, all enabling him to secure a strong power base with which he could

  • Word count: 1522
  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: History
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