Johannes Kepler Made Important Contributions

Johannes Kepler made important contributions to astronomy in the decades after Copernicus. His primary contribution was a modification or correction that he made to Copernicus's assumption that planets revolved around the sun in circular orbits: Kepler correctly argued that the revolutions are elliptical in nature.

Galileo must be counted among the most important of all astronomers because of his insistence on the use of rigorous observation. The first person ever to use a telescope to make detailed observations of the galaxy, he discovered the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter.

The British astronomer John Hadley (b. 1682) invented the first reflecting telescope, which allowed for all of the modern observations. His compatriot William Herschel brought about substantial improvements in telescope technology and with his reflecting telescope discovered Uranus and then the moons of Uranus and Saturn. He also discovered a number of deep-sky objects. He worked with his sister, Caroline Herschel -- one of the women who is often left out of the history of astronomy (Brock, 2007).

Finally, I believe that it is so hard for people to let go of the geocentric view of the galaxy because humans like to believe that we are supremely important. Because so many people lack a firm grounding in science they can hold to such beliefs because they do not understand the flaws in them. This is analogous to the ways in which people can doubt that global warming is both real and caused by human activities.

Question Two

Geoscience is a general term that comprises a number of related scientific disciplines, including geology, geochemistry, and geophysics and usually also oceanography and meteorology. Each of these sciences in different ways attend to the origins of our planet, the physical composition and form of Earth, the topological features of our planet, and the ways in which is has changed over time and continues to change. Geography blends the study of the Earth and its physical features with a study of the way in which these features affect humans and the ways in which humans in turn affect the Earth.

I believe that the greatest strength and weakness of geography are actually the same. It is both more holistic and more interdisciplinary than are sciences such as physics -- or geology. I think that this holistic focus -- which bridges the hard sciences and the social sciences -- causes other scientists to take geographers less seriously, which limits the ways in which geography can influence the international dialogue of science. At the same time, I think that the scientific aspects of geography cut off geographers from other social scientists such as anthropologists, with whom there should be a natural alliance. The result is a sort of orphaned science.

However, I also believe that a holistic approach is the only viable one for the discipline and has allowed it to make important advances in our understanding of our species (Harvey, 1997, p. 78).

Question Three

Climate is generally defined as the combination of meteorological conditions that are typical for a region. These include the amount of precipitation, the average temperatures, and wind patterns. Climate is relatively stable and long-term. Weather consists of the atmospheric conditions in an area for a short period of time -- for example, the fact that it is raining on a particular day.

The greenhouse effect is a condition that occurs when the Earth's atmosphere captures radiation from the Sun. Solar heat is trapped by certain gases (including carbon dioxide and methane). These gases allow sunlight in but not back out of the atmosphere. This effect can be seen on a small scale when a car parked in the sun with its windows closed heats up. Global warming is the relatively gradual increase in Earth's surface temperature that results from human activity. It has been set in motion by the greenhouse effect but is more complicated because there are feedback effects involved in climate change that magnify the initial effect of the build-up of gases such as carbon dioxide.

Global warming has the capacity -- indeed, probably the inevitable capacity -- of transforming nearly every aspect of our lives, and in most ways for the worse (Solomon etal, 2009, p. 1706).

Question Four

The pressure gradient force is the acceleration of air that occurs due to pressure differences in the atmosphere. In general, air moves from a region of high atmospheric pressure to one of low. This movement produces wind. Frictional force is the resistance or force that is produced when the surfaces of two objects come into contact with each other.

The Coriolis effect is the effect of the fact that the Earth's rotation deflects air. Since the Earth spins to the east, objects in the Northern Hemisphere tend to veer slightly right and those in the Southern Hemisphere veer to the left. This is what causes the absence of both northerly and southerly winds in both the polar regions and the tropics. Trade winds are also determined by the Coriolis force (Barry & Chorley, 2003, p. 113).