Essays on Cosmology

Yin and Yang are the basic principle and concept for both Chinese philosophy and culture that is traced back to the third century BCE. According to the principle, all the things that exist and surround us are inseparable and contradicting. Examples of this are female-male, old-young, darkness-light. These opposing aspects attract each other and, as it is illustrated by the well-known symbol of Yin-Yang principle, each of opposites has a part of the other in its core.

According to the principle, Yin stands for:

Feminine Black Dark North Cold Providing spirit for all things and so forth On the contrary, in terms of Chinese philosophy Yin ...

Imagine living on earth during a time when there was no electricity. A time with absolutely the bare minimum of any type of light pollution and just pure night time darkness. A time that when the sun set, a celestial showcase revealed a blanket of studded diamonds, twinkling in the night with splendor beyond belief. The wild, the magic, the miracles of survival; all captured in the cycle of day and night. The closet star to Earth, our Sun, feeds the planet with energy and warmth and the night sky illuminates the senses with creativity, wonder and storytelling. A ...

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Introduction

In the last few centuries, our understanding of universe has grown by leaps and bounds. Before seventeenth century, people generally believed that the Earth is at centre of the universe and all heavenly bodies move around the Earth. Galileo challenged the idea and published his papers in support of Copernican heliocentric theory that the Earth and other planets move around the Sun. Our understanding of universe grew further. We realized that the Sun is not unique and there are hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy, which are brighter ...

QUESTION ONE

Technology is changing every aspect of our being. Reading Nancy Abrams’ and Joel Primack’s The New Universe and the Human Future offers the readership something to ponder about. The descriptions open the mind to reflect on a new world that every human being should work to protect. The content and teaching of the book are a rare gem. Nancy and Joel present a challenge for the human race to start thinking in a scientific but realistic manner with respect to preservation of the planet. They maintain that the human race is perfectly qualified to take on this challenge ...

It is known that the Hebrew faith is one of the oldest faiths in the world. In the Hebrew Bible, only the Old Testament is present, and although both the Jews and the Christians worship the same God, their Bibles are quite different. It is believed that the Hebrew faith originated in Africa. Scholars know that the African continent is one of the oldest places of the world. According to David Rose, the Jews come from Asia and Africa and their language belongs to the group of languages called Semitic. Hebrew includes elements from both Arabic and Latin languages. ...

Abstract

The writing delves deep into the structure known as Borobudur. The historical, cultural and religious significance of this architectural structure is explored in the course of the writing so as to comprehend how the temple complex is important even in the present times. In relation to the theoretical concept of flaneur as explicated by the famous theorist Walter Benjamin, the images of the structures present inside the temple complex of Borobudur are explored. (Benjamin, 1929) It is further explored how Borobudur could have in reality been a city. Indeed, this place was the focus of Buddhist worship and scholarship ...

The Great North Road is one of the most significant national heritages that exist to date, and that was built using convict labor (Marshal and Sofaer, 1). The road is still intact to date and unlike other structures built at the time; it has stood the test of time and still exists to this day. However, the Great North Road had significant purposes to the lives of the Anasazi.

The Great North Road’s origin is in Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl, which are the largest structures in Chaco Canyon. Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl converge at Pueblo Alto, ...

1. The word “philosophy” means in Greek “the love/pursuit of wisdom” – considering the first Greek philosophers (the Pre-Socratics), what propelled them to pursue a new kind of “wisdom”? What were they unsatisfied with?

The pre-Socratic philosophers were referred to as physiologoi, meaning physical or natural philosophers. They sought to provide natural and rational justifications for various occurrences. The “essence of things” propelled them to pursue new king of wisdom by posing questions such as; where does everything come from? Can nature be explained mathematically? From what does everything emanate? As such, their concerns were ontology, mathematics, and cosmology. They were unsatisfied with the mythological explanations to the occurrences that were being experienced during their time and sought to provide reasoned explanations to natural occurrences.

2. How are the concepts of Lack (Poverty) and Resourcefulness (Resource) pertinent to Philosophy (and Love, according to Plato)? What does the philosopher lack, what resources does he/she have that enables him/her to attain what is lacking?

The concept of love depicts the fullness ...

Question 1

The solar system is located in a spiral arm: Orion-cygnus arm. According to (Leong 5), it is a minor spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy some three thousand five hundred light-years (1100 parsecs) across and approximately ten thousand light years (3100 parsecs) in length. It is also known as local arm, Orion Bridge, local spur and Orion spur.

It is named for the Orion constellation, one of the prominent constellations of the northern hemisphere winter (southern hemisphere) (Leong 26).the brightest stars and numerous famous celestial objects of this constellation- Betelgeuse, Rigel, the stars of the Orion belt, the Orion ...

The Solar System is located at the spiral arms of our Galaxy is called the Milky Way. It is basically made of the galactic dick, globular clusters and the halo. Scattered below and above the disk are the globular clusters. They are randomly scattered and they orbit in elliptical orbits. They have little or no gas in them and contain older stars than in the disk. The halo is the dim region that surrounds the whole galaxy. Now, the location of the Solar System is in the galactic disk’s spiral arm. There are six spiral arms arising from ...

In the modern period, the role of cosmology has changed in city planning following the advancement in technology and change in people preferences. However, city planning in China in the modern period integrates both cosmological concepts and new technology concepts. Some of the early cosmic axes such as axis mundi are still in use even in the modern China city planning. The role of cosmology has greatly changed leading to some innovations in some of the cities in China. An outstanding example is the reshaping of the urban form of Republican Beijing (Dong 22). New national politics of both ...

Introduction

The Dogona tribe lives in Bandiagara escarpment, south of the Niger River in Mali. It is approximated to comprise of more than 300,000 individuals (Douny 17). Besides it is regarded as the ancient tribe of Egypt. They are a primitive tribe, metal workers, artisans and onion farmers. As much as the Dogona society has been well distanced from the contact of the outside world, their culture constitutes a kind of spiritual aspects for several important religious traditions from the ancient times (Douny 20). On the other hand, there exists the Dagara tribe of West Africa. The Dagara tribe classified its ...

Religion and spirituality is evident in the nature of mankind. Many, if not all, persons and communities has the sense of deity and morality. However, there are many religious groups and beliefs around the world. Some of these are renowned, while some are not. In the Eastern societies, some widely accepted and observed religions include Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. In the Western societies, however, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are prominent. As a moral being, a person cannot accept or rather take part of a particular religion without conscious consideration. Holding on to a certain belief simply because of culture or family preferences is ...

Rabbi Maimonides is a medieval Jewish philosopher who wields considerable influence on Jewish thought and on philosophy in general. He also contributed significantly to the codification of the Jewish law. His writings and views hold a prominent place in Jewish intellectual history. In the Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides explores the concept of God and explains the plausible description of God according to Torah. Maimonides also spends significant amount of time in trying to understand the structure and characteristics of the universe. To this point, it becomes important that Maimonides wrote the book before scientific discoveries, so he draws from Aristotelian ...

Introduction

When the first crude telescopes grazed the vast space, the 17th century and astronomers such as Kepler and Galileo was already making discoveries of such as the moon craters, the rings of the planet Saturn, and the giant planet Jupiter. These discoveries paved the way for a more extensive exploration of the cosmos, which was ultimately revolutionized by the birth of the Hubble telescope. In April 1990, word’s most advanced space telescope named after the astronomer Edwin P. Hubble was launched at 353 miles above the earth’s surface with a mission to see deeper into space and beyond. The ...

Rick Rosner was obsessed and strongly believed in correcting his past mistakes in order to shape his future. He believed that he could correct every failure in order to enable him achieve success in life. He could not give up in tough moments and situations of despair and failure in life. When things refused to work for him in life, he went on and corrected every situation in life. He strived on and press forward towards a positive change in his life. Rick refused to give up when the things were not going his way. He went back to high ...

Since the beginning of the early civilizations, man tried to understand the world around him and why events take place. Some tried to put symbols to non-living things and even on natural occurrences, while many turned to religion to explain the meaning of life and the mystery behind the creation story. However, there were a few who deviated from this unyielding faith in religious preaching and sought to answer the world’s many mysteries through their own studies. In Europe, this desire to solve these mysteries escalated into a conflict between religion and science that resulted to the advent of the ...

- STEVEN SPIELBERG Steven Spielberg is a brilliant writer and filmmaker aside from being among the richest businessman in the U.S. with earnings of $110 million in 2007. He is best known of writing, producing and directing movies which were mostly blockbuster hits and became classic through time. He is best known for his film “Jaw” (1975) which became a hit and gave birth to the tradition of summer blockbuster. He was also known for his film, “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial”, which aside from being another blockbuster hit, had also awaken the awareness of viewers on the possibility of other ...

The epigraph mentioned in the question has been taken from the journal The Medieval Church Encounters the Classical Tradition. This blame on medieval ages is most often credited to the Christian Churches for throwing away the minute sparks of science and other creative activities. However, the conformation of the scholars to this fact has proved to be a major hindrance to the real understanding of the medieval ages. It cannot be denied that the middle ages were the times of political and social turmoil and saw a steep decline in the fields of learning and literacy. But, it is the ...

Rene Descartes was known as the leading contemporary scientist of Europe. During his lifetime, he was famous for the mathematical and mechanistic accounts that explored the fields of physics, cosmology, optics, physiology and biology. But merely a few decades after he passed away, his scientific systems were completely forgotten. But despite all this, Descartes still remains one of the widely read personalities of his age; the reason being not his scientific legacy but the developments of philosophy by him (Descartes). Yet the most significant works of Descartes include his proves about the existence of God and further study on the ...

Introduction

Knowledge is defined as the accurate understanding or acquaintance with areas of human survival. The more advanced understandings we have with on environment represent our improved survival. Humans traditionally gain knowledge through two sources. The first is through books. Books have always been the elementary source of knowledge from a very tender age. Children are not the only a group that use books or other written sources to gain knowledge but also adults. Despite the fact that books are very informative, experience is also another vital source of knowledge for humans. Experience is very vital as it uses real situations ...

Introduction

The Effects of Scientific Revolution on Religion has been a very critical topic in such fields as history, philosophy and other social sciences. The scientific revolution, arguably one of the most important developments in human history is a movement that substantially shook the foundations of religion (Wolfe & Wolfe, 2011). The primary purpose of this topic, is to narrow down the broad topic of the effects of scientific revolution in such a manner that such effects are viewed from the perspective of the medieval religious structures, and not from the eye of the entire humanity. I chose to discuss this topic because it ...

Presentation and Analysis of scientific evolution and history – Analysis and emphasis on two basic issues of scientific evolution as derived from the two following questions addressed within the set environment of researching into the field of History of Science – Reflections drawn upon the belief of David C. Lindberg as far as the scientific evolution and progress during Medieval years is concerned – Reflections drawn upon the evolution of the scientific field of cosmology and the revolution performed in this field leading to the breakdown of Aristotelian and Ptolemaic theories of cosmology [The author’s name]

Thesis statement

This paper presents historical ...

Man has always been curious and been investigating the nature of things. He has probed into the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of all phenomena observed. As science evolved, he came up with laws and equations to represent these observations. For many decades, if not centuries, he was satisfied with explaining everything around him using what is today known as ‘Classical Mechanics’. All bodies and phenomena observed could be explained by Newton’s Laws and his equations of motion. In fact this developed into the branch of Classical Mechanics and saw a huge leap in the field of Science. Be it describing ...

Stuckrad describes astrology as “a discipline that reckons the meaning of celestial bodies (Stuckrad 4).” This means that through celestial bodies, astrologers can predict the future and provide reason in terms of what is happening in the present. The article notes that being an astrologist was deemed hereditary and through this mechanism, it has survived for many years. Astrologists used different planets and the moon to forecast the future (Struckrad 5). As a result, this has attracted a number of people including the priests and royalties into the belief of astrology as an important segment in the society. Prediction of the future ...

This particular book is seen as a bold step towards discovering science and its related issues from the point of view of the indigenous American and other native people from the various walks of life in the this northern Hemisphere(Cajete 14) . Native science traces its origin from well established and deep philosophical views. This particular philosophy usually touches on the correct relationship with the natural setup of the world which is usually passed through unswerving and direct contact with the landscape and also by way of social and ritual situations that enable members of a society to learn vital ...

This particular book is seen as a bold step towards discovering science and its related issues from the point of view of the indigenous American and other native people from the various walks of life in the this northern Hemisphere(Cajete 14) . Native science traces its origin from well established and deep philosophical views. This particular philosophy usually touches on the correct relationship with the natural setup of the world which is usually passed through unswerving and direct contact with the landscape and also by way of social and ritual situations that enable members of a society to learn vital ...

Thales was one of the Greek philosophers predeceasing Socrates. He also served as one of the Seven Sages in Greece at the time. He was the first philosopher of Greek tradition. Thales is also the father of science. The most renowned place in philosophy held by Thales was his thesis on cosmology. This cosmology descends via a path from Metaphysics by Aristotle. In his work, Aristotle clearly conveys Thales’ nature of matter hypothesis. The hypothesis states that a substance of a single material (water) is nature’s inaugurating principle. Aristotle went on to give further speculations whose basis was his own ...

“Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe- An Analysis of the Role of Human Sacrifice

Introduction Events connected to religious practices framing the culture of the people Achebe describes in “Things Fall Apart” depend on long traditional practices and the role of human sacrifice. The agrarian culture described in the story link to religious practices impart the respect of the practitioners toward the need for communicating with the powers over nature, peoples’ behavior, and life practices among the communal aspects of the people Achebe describes. Analysis of this story looks at the traditional religious practices as part of the culture of the people in the story.

Human Sacrifice in Umuofia

The Umuofia like their fellow clansmen, as a ...

Abstract

Since time immemorial man has tried to study the Universe, its origin, and the laws that govern it. For many centuries now, this has been the major attraction in the field of Science. The scientific curiosity to learn about the Universe and its origin has gradually developed into a well defined branch of Science termed Cosmology. Today there are many sub-branches in Cosmology, and man has made huge progress in the journey towards finding the ultimate truth about the Universe. This paper introduces the field of Cosmology, its various disciplines, past findings, and then goes on to outline the present ...

Communication:

My topic of presentation was on the expansion of the universe. The center of my discussion was on the accelerating expansion of the universe and the cosmological implications particularly that at some point in the cosmological timescale, the better part of our universe will be unobservable to us. Our planet (or at least our galaxy since the planet would be long over) will be an isolated lonely place and boring with no cosmology to study. Due to the accelerating expansion, galaxies will at some point be moving apart at a speed possibly faster than that of light, this will get ...

Communication

COMMUNICATION The Modern Rhetorical Triangle Video 1 (Ananthaswamy, 2011) Speaker The speaker delves into the topic of astrophysics with an interesting incident that inspired his career. He manages to hold the interest of the audience, and shares useful information. The main purpose of the speaker is to educate the audience about the extreme conditions under which astrophysics is studied. The speaker provides pictures that illustrate his point. He explains clearly the reasoning behind the points that he has raised. In addition, he substantiates facts with examples, which helps the audience to elucidate the meaning of ...

Foundation of modern cosmology

Cosmology being the study of the universe has been changing over the years to what we currently view it as. Modern cosmology has been founded on the works of various principals who have studied astrology over time and during different eras. The ancient European medieval and ancient Greeks believed the earth to be the at the universe’s center. They believed that the moon, planets, and sun were orbiting the earth. This idea was believed by many including the Catholic Church who in fact influenced people of their religion to believe so. The Catholic Church banned anybody from ...

Abstract

The universe contains 100 billion galaxies. Each of these galaxies has billions of stars, great gas and dust clouds with others having scads of moons and planets. The stars release an abundance of energy either from radio waves, X-rays or from other forms of energy that run at a speed of light across the universe. However, all that can be seen is like the tip of the cosmic iceberg and accounts for a small portion of the total energy and mass in the universe. About one-quarter portion of the universe is made up of dark matter that does not release any ...

For a long time, there has been debate across the world regarding the existence of other life forms in other places outside the earth. From the time when human started to gain a deeper understanding of the universe, people continue to intuate that the outer space and other planets contains some form of civilization and other forms of life. This paper will explore this issue by synthesizing research and opinion regarding the existence of life in the outer space. For many years, the belief that there was life in space was very common among many scientists. To try and prove ...

Scientific background information

The Big Bang Theory is the cosmological model that explains how the current state of the universe came into existence. Scientific theories explain that approximately 13.75 billion years ago, the universe was dense, compact and extremely hot (Wollack 5). It then expanded rapidly releasing massive amounts of energy. The rapid expansion was followed by rapid cooling which resulted in the conversion of energy into sub-atomic particles (electrons, protons and neutrons) (Menegoni 13). According to scientific theories, the neutrons and the neutrons combined atomic nuclei minutes after the big bang to form the nuclei. According to Wollack, the electrons took ...

Introduction

It can be said that the pre-colonial Shona women of the country now known as Zimbabwe were ahead of their time as they had achieved and were living the lives that feminists today are still struggling to achieve. In the pre-colonial Shona culture, women were empowered. They were considered care takers not only of their people but also of nature. They were guided by the Mutupo principle, which advocated for equality among all of creation – men, women, animals, plants, and others.

Summary

In the essay Shona Women and the Mutupo Principle by Tumani Mutasa Nyajeka (135), the author describes the ...