Sagan and Hawking - Connections?

[dvan...@hcrhs.org]

[NOLAN DEVOE]

The articles were different in certain ways but Sagan and Hawking can agree on the conclusion. We have all these theories when we really do lack the knowledge. All we can do is try to comprehend and understand what is actually around us through patterns, or experimentation but we really do not know a set answer. We as a species claim to have so much knowledge but it could all be dis proven, whether it is tomorrow or five minutes from now. The only constant that we can actually rely on is that the universe is ever-changing and our understanding of that is what connection I made between the two scientific men.  

[HANNAH BRUZZIO]

The two readings share the common idea that there are things larger than us that we cannot see. We can make patterns to figure out what these things are but they are beyond our range of sight and we may never be able to really know what it actually there. We can not say for sure what is out there and we only understand what we know now because it has never been proven to be wrong.

On Thursday, May 16, 2013 12:50:26 PM UTC-4, dvan...@hcrhs.org wrote:

[AARON YRIZARRY-MEDINA]

I believe both are trying to say that it is impossible to know the universe in its fullness. Sagan says that we are unable to know everything there is to ever know about it because it is so vast. Hawking states that our perception is always going to be flawed of the universe so we can never get a perfect picture of it. Despite going at it differently, I believe the central topic is that our lack of knowledge of the inner workings of everything in the universe impairs us from having a complete knowledge. However we can interpret what he know to give us a "good enough" image based on pattern.

[CARTER RICE]

Both authors attempt to say that our universe cannot be fully understood, regardless of how hard we try. Hawking says that we can get closer and closer to the proper understanding, but will never quite have the perfect answer. Hagan, on the other hand, says that we simply cannot understand the universe nor can we know everything about it given its immense size. 

[Julianne Ferraro]

Both Sagan and Hawking include that we will never fully know or understand the universe. We can attempt to figure out more details and patterns but there will always be an unknown. Although, we can gain more of an understanding and knowledge from reviewing past experiences and others ideas. 

[VINCENT VASTANO]

Sagan and Hawking are both extremely intelligent and therefore are both able to articulate their points to us in a way that seems easy to grasp and understand. Both of them explain how the universe is infinite and we can't know everything about it or what's in it. However, we may be able to understand the universe and what it's composed of. When Sagan asks Can We Know the Universe?, our first answer is no, and we are not wrong. It is impossible to know the entirety of the universe, but we can be able to understand it. Hawking uses a very similar point in the first chapter of his book, A Brief History of Time. He says how our knowledge is limited, incomplete, and essentially wrong. Both authors come together to say the importance of learning is not necessarily blindly memorizing facts, but to ask questions that infer and draw conclusions to better gain knowledge and understanding of our universe.

[KYLE MALEK]

Both of the pieces try to analyze how we know what we know about the universe and why we believe it. They both also explain that we will never fully understand the universe because of how small we are compared to some things, as well as how large we are compared to others. We have many theories about what we may think the universe holds, but we will never understand it because it is simply too far beyond our sight.

[RYAN HAINES]

The articles and things we have been looking at in class all share common ground in the fact that knowledge and understanding are two different things, and understanding can sometimes be easier with assumptions and patterns.  The problem with these is we can't prove that they are completely right, and to fully understand something we'd need to know all of it, but our brains don't have the capacity to take in all that information.

[JULIA RINGEL]

Sagan and Hawking both say that it is impossible to prove a theory about the universe. They both say that we cannot have the perfect theory to describe our world because we don't have the ability to see everything and know everything that exists. They agree that no theory can be accurate because there is always the chance that it could be disproved. They both say that we can never know how our universe truly works because we can never learn all of the knowledge of the universe and apply that to understanding to create the perfect model of the universe.

[LISA BROWN]

They are both saying that science is always changing and that we should never take a theory as truth. We should always question scientific theories and ask why. They both comment that Aristotle made incorrect conclusions which were then corrected by the time of Galileo. They also say that people were too believing of scientific theories during the time of Aristotle. They are both saying that people need to understand huge and very small things to have some understanding of the universe. They are also saying that it would be very hard to know and understand the entire universe.