PHYSICS 20A Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Diurnal Temperature Variation, Georges Pouchet, Reflection Seismology
Document Summary
Thales (~600 bce) lived in miletus from ancient greece. Had radical notion: humans can understand workings of the world in material terms (no spirits). Democritus (400 bc) proposed that many worlds exist throughout the cosmos, said some of those worlds are populated with life, & believed everything is made of indivisible units he called atoms . Plato & aristotle (350 bce) believed other worlds were impossible, fundamentally disagreed with atomists, heavens = non-earthly material, perfect & unchanging. Earth = place of decay, death (& life). Copernicus (1540) suggested earth and other planets orbit the sun. Sun is at the center of it all so it can. Bruno (1540) famous early proponent of other worlds. suggested each star was like the sun w/ its own planets. Darwin (1800"s) proposed that natural selection was the primary mechanism of evolution in 1859. Familiar with artificial selection: humans breeding animals with desired traits.
