Great Science

I'm going to assign my students a short research project to investigate a great scientific achievment. They have to draw a subject out of a hat.

The more possibilities I have, the less I'm going to bang my head on a wall out of boredon as I grade the 250 projects.

I need your (yes YOUR) help. The topic needs to be moderatly easy to research (my students are not rocket scientists). For example, I considered the Turing Maching as too complicated to assign.

Here's the list so far. Any thoughts of what can be added? It's pretty darn eclectic. Engineering, chemistry, physics, whatever.

Abacus
Bathysphere
Artificial Heart
Cotton Gin
Penicillin
Polio Vaccine
Steam Engine
V2 Rocket
Printing Press
Camera Obscura
Internet
Elevator
GPS System
Air Conditioning
Bronze
Stainless Steel
Trebuchet
Gunpowder
Marine Chronometer
Ibuprofen
Typewriter
UNIVAC
The Chunnel
Large Hadron Collider
Panama Canal
Three Gorges Dam
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Manhattan Project
The Apollo Program
Skylab
Biosphere 2
Airplane
The Gemini Project
Fullerenes
The Periodic Table
Superconductors
Newton’s Laws of Motion
Hubble Telescope
Pasteurization
X-Rays
Scanning Electron Microscope
LASERs
RADAR
Blood Dialysis
MRIs

So really this is more about researching great inventions than scientific discoveries, right? Like the discovery of DNA as a double helix is a huge scientific achievement, but wouldn't really fit this list.

asterisk8 said:

So really this is more about researching great inventions than scientific discoveries, right? Like the discovery of DNA as a double helix is a huge scientific achievement, but wouldn't really fit this list.

 I can roll with DNA. Really it's a project about learning to do research (my kids are first year high school).

I ask because including pure scientific discoveries opens up a whole host of topics for you, but may be less interesting to research (and grade) than the invention of awesome machines and devices. But I see now you have Newton's Laws, the Periodic table, and Pasteurization on there.

And I just got major deja vu for some reason. Weird.

I'd go with the Periodic Table.

Once Boyle had identified something rather wonky about the model of the Classical Elements and Mendeleev had systematically organised the known chemical elements into groups, the table identified gaps and the characteristics of theoretical elements that would fill them.

Some were later discovered in nature and others (going by their speculative profile) were manufactured.

Knowing that elements are formed of atoms and that their configuration changed the nature of that element dramatically, led to further analysis of atomic structure and ultimately to Quantum Theory (without with the screens we are all reading from would almost certainly not have been made).

If this thread isn't a candidate for the Classic LOL Archive, Reasonable Question/Unhelpful Answer Category, I don't know what is.

...

So, to answer your question...Rocket Science?  Or the internet?

greenpenguino said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

That was perfect!

I blinded you with science?

TV's Frink said:

If this thread isn't a candidate for the Classic LOL Archive, Reasonable Question/Unhelpful Answer Category, I don't know what is.

But before you arrived it was reasonable... and after you arrived it's still not funny.

:-P 

TheBoost said:

TV's Frink said:

If this thread isn't a candidate for the Classic LOL Archive, Reasonable Question/Unhelpful Answer Category, I don't know what is.

But before you arrived it was reasonable... and after you arrived it's still not funny.

 

:-P 

Sorry

TV's Frink said:

TheBoost said:

TV's Frink said:

If this thread isn't a candidate for the Classic LOL Archive, Reasonable Question/Unhelpful Answer Category, I don't know what is.

But before you arrived it was reasonable... and after you arrived it's still not funny.

 

:-P 

Sorry

 that's firewalled for me, but I'm going to assume it's a sincere, contrite apology without a hint of whimsy.

TheBoost said:

TV's Frink said:

TheBoost said:

TV's Frink said:

If this thread isn't a candidate for the Classic LOL Archive, Reasonable Question/Unhelpful Answer Category, I don't know what is.

But before you arrived it was reasonable... and after you arrived it's still not funny.

 

:-P 

Sorry

 that's firewalled for me, but I'm going to assume it's a sincere, contrite apology without a hint of whimsy.

Sorry:

Another I'd go for is the Pictogram.

It's a chicken and egg question about which came first, spoken language or picture based forms of written communication but Pictograms (being the basis of many forms of writing) transcend spoken language as they can pass information not only across language barriers but also down through generations.

How about the science of the chicken and the egg?