Entries Tagged 'Science' ↓

Continuing my work to help my former ESL students, I am posting a second profile that I have written up about a famous scientist. This is one is about Albert Einstein. I think it’s quite informative and easy to read.

Albert Einstein was a great scientist. He was born on March 14th, 1879 in Wurrtenberg, Germany. He studied physics and mathematics at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School.

Albert Einstein had many great achievements. He is famous for his general theory of relativity. His study of atomic theory led to E= MC2. He also did much work in the Brownian movements. He made many discoveries in molecular dimensions. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Albert Einstein was a peace activist. He advocated World government and peace through discussions in the World Government movement. He cared about people and effects that science had on them. He had a strong determination to solve problems and seek answers. He was dedicated to science and appreciated intellectual solitude where he did most of his work.

Albert Einstein married Mileva Maric in 1903. They had 2 sons and 1 daughter. Albert Einstein died on April 19th, 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey.

It’s been a long time since I wrote a science articles. It’s also been a while since I wrote personal profile. To get back into the swing of things, I have decided to put up a couple of quick profiles I wrote about scientists. Here is one on Galileo. Bear with me since they are designed for ESL students.

Galileo Galilei was a great scientist. He was born on February 18th, 1564 in Tuscany, Pisa, Italy. He studied at the University of Pisa. His father was Vicencio Galilei and helped him in his early studies. Galileo Galielei died on Jan 8th, 1642 in prison.

Galileo Galilei had many great achievements. He is famous for discovering the Law of Inertia. He advanced the Copernicus Theory that says the Earth revolves around the sun. It had been accepted that the Earth was the center of the Universe. He also discovered moons around Jupiter and Saturn. He was the inventor of the telescope.

Galileo Galilei was a curious person and it lead him to many discoveries. He was intellectually honest. His strong determination means that he never gave up his studies. He withstood much persecution from the Catholic Church for his beliefs. Through it all, he became a successful man who is revered by many scientists.

One of the things I miss about the desert is standing out in the middle of nowhere late at night and just looking up at the night sky. Some people say that the skies are clearer in the desert, but I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s because it’s in the middle of nowhere far from lots of light pollution.

All the lights from homes, business, cars and just about every other source of light creates a night sky that is not nearly as dark as it used to be. All of it is light pollution and it’s getting worse. Light pollution costs us money because it is very wasteful of electricity. For me, I don’t like it because it ruins night star gazing.

The sky is much lighter now than it was when I was a kid. I live in a city and I can’t even go outside at night and see any more than the moon and a few other stars. I have never really had the opportunity to take my kids out just to look at the stars like my father did with me.

Harmony, Florida has decided to do something about that. On April 5th, they will kick off their 5th Annual Dark Sky Festival. During the week of the festival, they will be encouraging better lighting practices. At the festival, several speakers will talk about he problems of light pollution and solutions that protect our night sky and save money. There will be a kids zone for children to learn and have fun. No festival is complete without music and that’s why organizers have invited Rare Earth to perform.

That’s all good, but the the most important part of the festival is the chance to see the stars. There will be telescopes set up for people to view the night sky. People can reacquaint themselves with the beauty of the night sky.

I have been looking at some interesting statistics lately. I know people keep saying that global warming is a fact and it’s fact that it’s caused by humans altering their environment. I’m sorry but I have always been a skeptic and lately my skepticism has been growing.

It seems that global temperatures have actually been leveling off over the last 5 years. This is interesting because it goes against what the models are predicting. Another interesting tidbit is that global temperatures are not nearly as high as during 1000 to 1200 AD. If you recall from your high school history classes, during this time the Vikings colonized and had farms on Greenland.

Meaning Greenland was much warmer then than now…..maybe we are just having a natural climate cycle after all.

(Continued from Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn Part I)The second part of the Cassini-Huygens Mission, the Huygens probe, separated from the Cassini spacecraft and descended into the Titan atmosphere on January 14th, 2005. The Huygens probe was the European Space Agency’s contribution to the mission and it was the first probe sent to probe the atmosphere and surface of another planet’s moon. As it descended through the orangish atmosphere, it collected reams of data that it relayed back to Earth. The data showed the atmosphere consisted of liquid methane and was not nearly as calm as astronomers had hoped. The Cassini Spacecraft, during a flyby on July 21, 2006, discovered the first methane/ethane lakes on the surface of Titan. These lakes ranged in size from 1/2 mile to nearly 60 miles across.
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