Generic Vocabulary

Aristocrat - Inherits money, title, and power

Technology - Designing tools to solve problems

Resources - Objects/Talents to use for practical purposes

Primary Effect - First, most immediate change caused by an event

Secondary Effect - Bigger changes caused by the first set of changes

Tertiary Effect - Even larger changes caused by earlier sets of changes

Idea - Imagining something that could be

“Correlation is not Causation“

Weights and Measures

Vocab

Tare - Setting a scale to zero (Can be used to set items to zero so that they are not counted in the measurement)

Gross - Total Amount

Net - Total amount after something is subtracted from Gross (Net Worth)

Weights and Measures - Standard units that tell you how much you have of something

Metric System - A common measurement system almost used everywhere

Smoot - Height/length of Oliver R. Smoot, 5ft 7in

Bureau of Weights and Measures

• Regulates all measuring devices

  • Precision scales, gas pumps, transfer scales

  • Need good math skills

• Use old-fashioned equipment to measure, sometimes uses electronics

• In 1919, became a department under the Department of Agriculture

  • Part of Department of Agriculture due to the need to measure quantities of crops and agriculture

• Investigator addresses consumer complaints

• Verify gas pumps and scales every year

• Labs have samples of weights compared with national standards

  • All weights are tracked each day in an Excel spreadsheet

• Gas pumps must be read at eye level, at the meniscus (And other scales too)

Optics

Vocab

Optics - The technology of seeing things (HOST def.)

Stonehenge - Giant stone structure, tracks solstices and served as a burial ground

Astrolabe - Used measurements of stars to find longitude and latitude (especially at sea)

Sextant - Can be used to find longitude/latitude or the time with advanced calculations

Concave - Slightly dish-shaped (Like a dent)

Convex - Slightly bump-shaped

Rectilinear Propagation of Light - Light always travels in a straight line

Solstices and Equinoxes

Summer Solstice (Midsummer) - Longest day, shortest night (June 21), beginning of Summer

Winter Solstice (Yule) - Shortest day, longest night (December 21), beginning of Winter

• In the northern region of the northern hemisphere, there is no sun at all.

Vernal Equinox- First day of Spring, day/night same length

Autumnal Equinox - First day of Autumn, day/night same length

Astronomy - Study of stars

Astrology - Trying to predict the future and personalities through star position

Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes - 276 B.C.E, head librarian at the library of Alexandria, Ptolemy

Calculated the circumference of the Earth using Solstice measurements

• He planted sticks into the grounds of two cities. When the shadows were of different length, he used simple mathematics to calculate the circumference.

Effects of the Sextant

• Primary Effect of the Sextant - Users know where they were

• Secondary Effect of the Sextant - Time was needed to use the sextant, which started a motion to invent an accurate clock that could work at sea.

  • Most clocks depended on a pendulum, which would not work at sea

    • Chronometer was invented, and then accurate timekeeping was there to use the sextant.

  • European army officers were almost always aristocrats and did not always know what they were doing. Naval officers, however, had to be very well educated (Europe had the best Navy)

• Tertiary Effect of the Sextant - Royal Naval Observatory, science/math linked to Navy.

  • Located at the Prime Meridian, Greenwich, England

    • GMT - Greenwich Mean Time

Effect of Lenses

Lenses - A clear piece of glass or plastic that changes the focus of an image

Primary Effect of Lenses - Images could be made to look larger or closer

Secondary Effect of Lenses - Grinding lenses was invented, or making lenses concave or convex

Tertiary Effect of Lenses - Important lens inventions were invented (Eyeglasses, binoculars, telescope, microscope, contact lenses)

• None of this was possible until the world had access to clear, transparent glass

Contaminant - A something in a substance that makes it contaminated (Not pure)

Glass - Silica melted into a transparent material, often from sand with the contaminants removed

Sextant vs. Astrolabe

• Both were devices that could be used to find the user’s location.

  • The sextant was much more accurate than the astrolabe, but required more advanced calculations.

• Like a math equation, both devices needed three criteria to be used (If the user knew any 2 of these 3 criteria, they could find the third one.)

  • Time

  • The measurements of the stars

  • Location