Modeling the World

In this lecture, Professor Rocha explained more in depth of how symbols originated. According to Rocha, symbols were first explored by Aristotle. Aristotle discovered that in physics for example, rules could describe an object's weight, density and rate of fall. After Aristotle came Galileo. Galileo further extended Aristotle's theories and believed that certain things such as fire had primary element and qualities. Years later, Newton extended the idea of abstraction. It was not until the 1800s when Heinrich Hertz was the first man to broadcast and receive radio waves. Although this was successful, Hertz's main goal was to reveal and eliminate the mysteries of Physics. Professor Rocha also explained about the Polya Method. There are 4 step to this method which include: 1) Understanding the problem, 2) Devising a plan, 3) Carrying out the plan, 4) Looking back at the solution. One thing that intrigued me was the idea of Fibonacci numbers and how they worked. From what I understood, as a number increases, the number of letter increases by adding the previous numbers (not sure if that makes sense). One other thing that intrigued me was the experiment was the black box. Though I don't understand how it works, from what I understood, the higher the cycles the more the box became black. This only worked to a certain point however. Once the cycles hit 20,000 cycles, the colors returned and continued. I enjoyed this lecture very much and I hope to hear more of this in furth lectures.