ASTR 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Cavendish Experiment
6 Sep 2016
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This question date back as long ago as socrates. He argued that the pure intellectual enjoyment of study astronomy was enough, but there are indeed some practical reasons. To navigate the stars can navigate us. In modern times, we study astronomy for various reasons. Reminds us of our fragility (comets could hit us at any time) Technological spinoffs (new instruments and devices that improve our daily life) Resources elsewhere (in future, may have to find resources on other worlds) Serendipitous discovery (don"t know what to expect from explorations) Minimalist in its assumptions sometimes referred to as ockham"s razor : if you have two theories that are equally successful in explaining some phenomenon, than you should work with the simpler of the two. Astronomy has several unique features from other sciences. There is no experimentation since we don"t have access to stars and other planets. There are some exceptions, however, such as examining moon rocks.
