Video-psychology-past, Present Essay -- essays research papers

Past, Present, and Promise   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  'Past, Present, and Promise'; is the first volume in the twenty-six volume set. The video begins by introducing the series and going over basic definitions such as the definition of psychology. The video continues on by giving an example of a disorder that psychologists may work with- multiple personality disorder. A woman who has an extreme case of this disorder is introduced. At times she believes she is a scared seven year old girl named Carol, and at other times she has a coarse personality of a man named Devan. After describing the characteristics the host explains how this disorder is usually caused by childhood traumatic/sadistic experiences and is used to mask emotions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In introducing behavior, the video shows several clips from Candid Camera back in the 50s. Junior High boys and girls have conferences with their new teacher who is either a handsome man or an attractive woman, pairing the boys with the woman and the girls with the man. Once the teacher walks away both the girls and boys either break out into laughter or smile embarrassingly. Why did they act this way? The video states that two factors affect personality: dispositional and situational. Dispositional factors are those that are a part of us and internal such as genetics, attitude, and personality. Situational factors are those that come from the environment such as sensory stimulation, rewards, and punishments.  ...

Role of Urbanization in the Aegean

The Aegean civilizations, the Assyrians, and the Israelites, though in the same hemisphere, were three distinct kingdoms. Each developed into its own kingdom with its own set of rules, beliefs, religion, and political concepts. Ultimately, each had its own culture. Yet, there was something that underlied these three cultures that connected them in a subtle manner. All three of these civilizations underwent urbanization. Though the specific cultures of each civilization developed differently, the role of urbanization affected each in roughly the same way.During this period of the Late Bronze Age, commerce and communication boomed exponentially. No longer would kingdoms maintain their isolationist beliefs. They had to trade and interact with other cultures in order to maximize opportunity cost and obtain as many foreign goods as possible. This inevitably resulted in shared cultures and assimilated beliefs. Along the Aegean Sea, the Minoans had widespread connections to Egypt, Syria, an d Mesopotamia. Similarly, Mycenaean Greece traded with many civilizations, including its neighbor the Minoans.The early Greeks were most likely influenced by Minoan architecture and pottery. Its sudden wealth also came from trade with Minoan. In the Assyrian kingdom, they also developed trade centers. They imported goods like metals, fine textiles, dyes, gems, ivory, and silver. Because of trade centers, specialization arose, creating jobs like artisans and merchants. In the Israel kingdom, King Solomon created alliances with the Phoenicians and thus developed a trading partner. Together, the Phoenicians and the Israelites explored the Red Sea to find any hidden treasures.The creation of urban centers helped facilitate this trade, and thus, expanded the perspectives of these cultures. Through interaction with other civilizations, cultures were shared and ideas, along with goods, were traded. Because of an influx of commerce and communication, a powerful military must also be kept. U rban centers helped control the military in order to facilitate trade. The Minoans and Mycenaeans developed strong seafaring skills and created wooden vessels to help them trade around the Mediterranean.They exported wine, olive oil, and textiles, and in return imported amber, ivory, and most importantly, metals. In the Assyrian kingdom, there was a superior military organization with professional soldiers. The Assyrians developed iron weapons, dug tunnels, and built mobile towers for archers. Not only did they develop military tactics for conquest, but they also used terror tactics to discourage resistance and rebellion and ultimately maintain control. As for the Israelites, David became the first king and he united the tribes into a monarchy.These urban centers established stronger royal authority and led to an army in order to expand borders in search of natural resources. Stronger militaries meant stronger civilizations, so urbanization helped strengthen the power of nobility an d expand borders. Last but not least, urbanization helped develop societal structures, religious ideals, and art and technology. Unlike other civilizations, Minoans did not have strong, aristocratic leaders. In Mycenaean Greece, an elite class did develop.Shaft graves, burial sites for the elite, were filled with gold, weapons, and utensils, revealing that the ancient Greeks believed in some form of afterlife. The cities also had fortification walls and palaces filled with paintings from war and daily life. In contrast, the Assyrians used terror to maintain order in society. The king was the center of the Assyrian universe. Everything he did was mandated by the god Ashur. Through government propaganda, royal inscriptions, and ruthless punishments, the king maintained power in the kingdom.The Library of Ashurbanipal gives insight into official documents and literary texts to help portray the daily life of the elite members of Assyrian society. As for the Israelites, monotheism became the crux of Israelite society. They built temples as sanctuaries in order to link religious and political power. Priests became a wealthy class, thus creating a gap between the urban and the rural, the rich and the poor. In families, there were also gender gaps. Male heirs were critical. While women were respected, they could not own property. As society urbanized, their roles became more and more limited and specialized.While these little bits and pieces of everyday life in these ancient civilizations may seem insignificant, they are like pieces of an infinitely large puzzle. If we can uncover as many pieces as we can and put them together, we can approximate a picture of what life was like in these ancient civilizations. We can figure out how urbanization was important to the development of these kingdoms, and use these cultural artifacts to uncover what daily life was like. After all, artifacts are the key to our past. Without them, our past would be an elusive enigma.

Using Significant Figures and Scientific Notation

When making a measurement, a scientist can only reach a certain level of precision, limited either by the tools being used or the physical nature of the situation. The most obvious example is measuring distance. Consider what happens when measuring the distance an object moved using a tape measure (in metric units). The tape measure is likely broken down into the smallest units of millimeters. Therefore, theres no way that you can measure with a precision greater than a millimeter. If the object moves 57.215493 millimeters, therefore, we can only tell for sure that it moved 57 millimeters (or 5.7 centimeters or 0.057 meters, depending on the preference in that situation). In general, this level of rounding is fine. Getting the precise movement of a normal-sized object down to a millimeter would be a pretty impressive achievement, actually. Imagine trying to measure the motion of a car to the millimeter, and youll see that,  in general, this isnt necessary. In the cases where such precision is necessary, youll be using tools that are much more sophisticated than a tape measure. The number of meaningful numbers in a measurement is called the number of significant figures of the number. In the earlier example, the 57-millimeter answer would provide us with 2 significant figures in our measurement. Zeroes and Significant Figures Consider the number 5,200. Unless told otherwise, it is generally the common practice to assume that only the two non-zero digits are significant. In other words, it is assumed that this number was rounded  to the nearest hundred. However, if the number is written as 5,200.0, then it would have five significant figures. The decimal point and following zero is only added if the measurement is precise to that level. Similarly, the number 2.30 would have three significant figures, because the zero at the end is an indication that the scientist doing the measurement did so at that level of precision. Some textbooks have also introduced the convention that a decimal point at the end of a whole number indicates significant figures as well. So 800. would have three significant figures while 800 has only one significant figure. Again, this is somewhat variable depending on the textbook. Following are some examples of different numbers of significant figures, to help solidify the concept: One significant figure49000.00002Two significant figures3.70.005968,0005.0Three significant figures9.640.0036099,9008.00900. (in some textbooks) Mathematics With Significant Figures Scientific figures provide some different rules for mathematics than what you are introduced to in your mathematics class. The key in using significant figures is to be sure that you are maintaining the same level of precision throughout the calculation. In mathematics, you keep all of the numbers from your result, while in scientific work you frequently round based on the significant figures involved. When adding or subtracting scientific data, it is only last digit (the digit the furthest to the right) which matters. For example, lets assume that were adding three different distances: 5.324 6.8459834 3.1 The first term in the addition problem has four significant figures, the second has eight, and the third has only two. The precision, in this case, is determined by the shortest decimal point. So you will perform your calculation, but instead of 15.2699834 the result will be 15.3, because you will round to the tenths place (the first place after the decimal point), because while two of your measurements are more precise the third cant tell you anything more than the tenths place, so the result of this addition problem can only be that precise as well. Note that your final answer, in this case, has three significant figures, while none of your starting numbers did. This can be very confusing to beginners, and its important to pay attention to that property of addition and subtraction. When multiplying or dividing scientific data, on the other hand, the number of significant figures do matter. Multiplying significant figures will always result in a solution that has the same significant figures as the smallest significant figures you started with. So, on to the example: 5.638 x 3.1 The first factor has four significant figures and the second factor has two significant figures. Your solution will, therefore, end up with two significant figures. In this case, it will be 17 instead of 17.4778. You perform the calculation then round your solution to the correct number of significant figures. The extra precision in the multiplication wont hurt, you just dont want to give a false level of precision in your final solution. Using Scientific Notation Physics deals with realms of space from the size of less than a proton to the size of the universe. As such, you end up dealing with some very large and very small numbers. Generally, only the first few of these numbers are significant. No one is going to (or able to) measure the width of the universe to the nearest millimeter. Note This portion of the article deals with manipulating exponential numbers (i.e. 105, 10-8, etc.) and it is assumed that the reader has a grasp of these mathematical concepts. Though the topic can be tricky for many students, it is beyond the scope of this article to address. In order to manipulate these numbers easily, scientists use  scientific notation. The significant figures are listed, then multiplied by ten to the necessary power. The speed of light is written as: [blackquote shadeno]2.997925 x 108  m/s There are 7 significant figures and this is much better than writing 299,792,500 m/s. Note The speed of light is frequently written as 3.00 x 108  m/s, in which case there are only three significant figures. Again, this is a matter of what level of precision is necessary. This notation is very handy for multiplication. You follow the rules described earlier for multiplying the significant numbers, keeping the smallest number of significant figures, and then you multiply the magnitudes, which follows the additive rule of exponents. The following example should help you visualize it: 2.3 x 103  x 3.19 x 104   7.3 x 107 The product has only two significant figures and the order of magnitude is 107  because 103  x 104   107 Adding scientific notation can be very easy or very tricky, depending on the situation. If the terms are of the same order of magnitude (i.e. 4.3005 x 105  and 13.5 x 105), then you follow the addition rules discussed earlier, keeping the highest place value as your rounding location and keeping the magnitude the same, as in the following example: 4.3005 x 105   13.5 x 105   17.8 x 105 If the order of magnitude is different, however, you have to work a bit to get the magnitudes the same, as in the following example, where one term is on the magnitude of 105  and the other term is on the magnitude of 106: 4.8 x 105   9.2 x 106   4.8 x 105   92 x 105   97 x 105or4.8 x 105   9.2 x 106   0.48 x 106   9.2 x 106   9.7 x 106 Both of these solutions are the same, resulting in 9,700,000 as the answer. Similarly, very small numbers are frequently written in scientific notation as well, though with a negative exponent on the magnitude instead of the positive exponent. The mass of an electron is: 9.10939 x 10-31  kg This would be a zero, followed by a decimal point, followed by 30  zeroes, then the series of 6 significant figures. No one wants to write that out, so scientific notation is our friend. All the rules outlined above are the same, regardless of whether the exponent is positive or negative. The Limits of Significant Figures Significant figures are a basic means that scientists use to provide a measure of precision to the numbers they are using. The rounding process involved still introduces a measure of error into the numbers, however, and in very high-level computations there are other statistical methods that get used. For virtually all of the physics that will be done in the high school and college-level classrooms, however, correct use of significant figures will be sufficient to maintain the required level of precision. Final Comments Significant figures can be a significant stumbling block when first introduced to  students because it alters some of the basic mathematical rules that they have been taught for years. With significant figures, 4 x 12 50, for example. Similarly, the introduction of scientific notation to students who may not be fully comfortable with exponents or exponential rules can also create problems. Keep in mind that these are tools which everyone who studies science had to learn at some point, and the rules are actually very basic. The trouble is almost entirely remembering which rule is applied at which time. When do I add exponents and when do I subtract them? When do I move the decimal point to the left and when to the right? If you keep practicing these tasks, youll get better at them until they become second nature. Finally, maintaining proper units can be tricky. Remember that you cant directly add centimeters and meters, for example, but must first convert them into the same scale. This is a common mistake for beginners but, like the rest, it is something that can very easily be overcome by slowing down, being careful, and thinking about what youre doing.