Procedures in the Physical Sciences - Essay Example

Science can be defined to be a systematic knowledge of the physical material contained on earth and even beyond. This knowledge is gained through experiments and observations. Identify three (3) specific challenges to making direct measurements in the fields of astronomy, chemistry, physics, or earth science. Describe how scientists have utilized indirect forms of measure to overcome these challenges. Challenges’ arise in the quest to gain this knowledge, for example, ; it becomes difficult sometimes to measure some elements and phenomena directly.

Astronomy as a science has been around for quite a while. Astronomy is defined as a natural science that studies objects in the universe such as planets, stars galaxies, moons and even nebulae. This study involves the physics chemistry mathematics and evolution associated with this objects not excluding the phenomena that originates outside the atmosphere of the earth (Neugebauer,50). Astronomy provides an opportunity for armatures to contribute. These contributions are responsible for major developments in this field.

This does not imply that all or most discoveries have been carried out. Challenges have risen from different angles, for instance one of the major problems they have encountered is finding the accurate distance of planets and stars from planet earth. However, with the advancements made in the field discoveries such as the use of luminosity and brightness of the astronomical objects to figure out their distance from the earth. Luminosity is a way of measuring the amount of brightness or energy emitted by any form of matter in the universe (Salpeter,10-30).

This implies that light that travels to reach the earth can be measured. A hypothesis is made that stars shift off the main sequence after they burn up to about 10% of the hydrogen they contain and that there is an uniform creation of stars in the universe. Using this hypothesis and the luminosity function that has been observed, the rate that stare created as a function of stellar mass is then calculated. These calculations are deemed to assist to indirectly give the distance of a body from the earth.

Another possible indirect way of doing this is a method called parallax, which involves triangulation. The major process involved is looking at the records of a star and then looking at it six months later. Astronomers can measure the distance of the angle of viewing .the combination of this work with the orbital diameter of the earth to sun and some involved produces the distance of that body. Objects in space are not the only challenge that astronomers face. Another challenge that astronomers have faced is the determination of the age of the universe.

There is no direct way of measuring how long the universe has been around. For a while in the 90s the estimated age of the universe was ten billion years, however, age estimates for the stars and the galaxy were about 13 and 18 billion years respectively. This implies that some bodies in the universe are older than the universe itself. Better estimates of distance to the stars used in measuring age have reduced the disparities down to only a few billion years. Giving a consideration at dark energy into the cosmological model pushed the age estimates of the universe to the current value of 13.

80 billion years. Choose two (2) of the most historically influential tools or techniques in the physical sciences. Explain how these techniques or tools work, and how they helped to advance our