Social World – Page 37 – Montessori Muddle

The Galilean moons of Jupiter

Io over Jupiter taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

400 years ago, on January 7th, Galileo Galilei made his first observations of Jupiter. You can see his notes below. The big circle is Jupiter and the small dots are the specks of light he observed adjacent to the planet. Later observations showed that the specks did not stay in the same place, and lead him to realize that he was seeing moons orbiting the planet.

Galileo_Journal — Galileo's notes from Jan 7, 1610.

Galileo_Transcript — Translation of Galileo's notes (from NASA).

Galileo used a 33x telescope, which is pretty weak by modern standards, in fact you should be able to see Jupiter and it’s moons with a good pair of binoculars. Since the Catholic church at the time preferred the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, when Galileo published his observation he got into a bit of trouble. In his publication Galileo wrote:

On the 7th day of January in the present year, 1610, in the first hour of the following night, when I was viewing the constellations of the heavons through a telescope, the planet Jupiter presented itself to my view, and as I had prepared for myself a very excellent instrument, I noticed a circumstance which I had never been able to notice before, namely that three little stars, small but very bright, were near the planet; and although I believed them to belong to a number of the fixed stars, yet they made me somewhat wonder, because they seemed to be arranged exactly in a straight line, parallel to the ecliptic, and to be brighter than the rest of the stars, equal to them in magnitude . . .When on January 8th, led by some fatality, I turned again to look at the same part of the heavens, I found a very different state of things, for there were three little stars all west of Jupiter, and nearer together than on the previous night.

The above quote comes NASA’s page on the discovery of the Galilean satellites (for a full translation of the entire document go to: The Starry Messenger). The NASA page also has another neat quote, from Simon Marius describing how the moons got their names:

Jupiter is much blamed by the poets on account of his irregular loves. Three maidens are especially mentioned as having been clandestinely courted by Jupiter with success. Io, daughter of the River, Inachus, Callisto of Lycaon, Europa of Agenor. Then there was Ganymede, the handsome son of King Tros, whom Jupiter, having taken the form of an eagle, transported to heaven on his back …

For perspective, the image below, of Io’s surface, was taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. Click on the image to get to the high resolution version.

The Galileo Mission website is a great resource about the mission to Jupiter and about Galileo Galilei himself. You can also find out what NASA’s up to with respect to Jupiter here.

A sense of justice as a key to moral development

On an personal level, I’ve always felt that the sense of justice shapes the way people react to the world on a fundamental level. In the language of Montessori, justice is a fundamental need of humanity. As we mature we begin to see justice from different perspectives, and after going over the history of human rights, I wonder if this applies to societies as well.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s famous theory about the stages of moral development center around the idea of how people see and react to justice and injustice. His first level (pre-conventional) is based on how moral actions affect oneself; if I do this then they will do that right back to me (and I won’t like it). In the second level (conventional) the main concern is how actions affect and are perceived by society; it’s not right to do this because everyone will talk about it (and I don’t like that). The final level (post-conventional), moral judgments are made based on some underlying principles; I should not do this because it will violate someone’s universal human rights (and I would have violated my own principles).

When we talk about the history of human rights, we are discussing how society has gone through these different stages. The first rule of justice, no matter the culture, is some variant of the Golden Rule, an eye for an eye. Eventually we discover the rights of the citizen, then finally the rights of humans. In humans, this moral evolution is innate in potential but not necessarily realized. Similarly is societies, after all, the Greek democracies eventually failed. But there seems to be a general trajectory of history toward post-conventional morality. Robert Wright, in his book “Nonzero” sees this path as the almost inevitable outcome of the beneficial nature of cooperation to human societies.

Of course Nonzero was written in the post-Cold War and pre 9/11 period, when the world was breathing a sigh of relief when the potential for global thermonuclear war seemed to disappear (I also remember David Rudder’s 1990 had a similar theme).

Uganda and the human rights of gays

These last few weeks we’ve been talking about human rights, and today I heard a poignant article on NPR about the anti-homosexual bill being debated in Uganda. It touches on so many of the rights issues we’ve been discussing in class and more. Incitement by American evangelical pastors, whose invective against homosexuality is subsumed by the more tolerant US culture, can sow viscous seeds of hatred in a less liberal society. The Ugandan law being debated would increase the institutionalized discrimination to the point of including execution for gays and prison sentences for people who do not inform on them.

But the article also addresses Ugandans’ instinctive animosity against colonialism. Since homophobia has taken an important place in the Christian mythology of Uganda (in 1886 two dozen Christian palace pages were executed for not engaging in homosexual acts with the king). When foreigners (NGO’s and liberal governments) say homophobia is a violation of peoples’ human rights, the Christian Ugandan proponents of the bill claim cultural imperialism and colonialism. Note the phrase “Christian Ugandan” and consider the irony.

As an added bonus, there’s also Rick Warren, the American mega-church pastor, quoting Edmond Burke, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” in his late-in-coming but nice to hear condemnation of the bill. It raises the question of moral conflict, as sincere opponents of gay rights see their works taken to their scary extreme.

Adolescents often need help to realize that words have power, sometimes much more than you realize.

Though it’s not emphasized, the article also has a lesson on checks and balances in a democratic government; the Ugandan president now opposes the bill. It also teaches about international relations and the power of diplomacy. Sweden has said it will cut international aid to Uganda and the issue is overtaking other international issues. The BBC article on the topic has a great quote from President Museveni:

“The prime minister of Canada came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays,” he said.

“[UK] Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays.

“Mrs Clinton [the US secretary of state] rang me. What was she talking about? Gays.”

A sailing game that explores the trans-Atlantic triangular trade

Wind patterns over the North Atlantic Ocean had a huge effect on the colonization and history of the Americas because, after all, all they had were sailing ships. The circular, clockwise winds meant that it was easiest to sail south and west from Europe, and when you did, the first place you arrived at in the New World was the Caribbean or the northern edge of South America. This helps explains the first settlements of the Portuguese and Spanish, and why the latecomers, like the British, ended up further north up the coast of North America.

Using wind data from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and Google Maps I created an online sailing game I call Mariner AO. The game is pretty simple (basic instructions are here), you tell your ship which direction to go, starting off near Lisbon in Portugal and sail the Atlantic. What makes it interesting is that you can go wherever you like and make your own objectives. All that limits where you can go is the fact that you can only sail within 90 degrees of the wind. It’s very Montessori in that you have choice within limits.

The game is most interesting, I think, if you set objectives like trying to sail the triangular trade route, Europe (Portugal) to Africa (Dakar) to America (Charleston) and back to Europe again. The general clockwise wind pattern is persistent throughout the year, but sometimes you need to wait until the wind changes to be able to reach your objective.

Alistair Boddy-Evans has a nice article on the triangular trade of European manufactured goods to Africa, African slaves to the Americas, and plantation crops back to Europe.

I really like this game because it integrates so much. Atmospheric circulation, slavery, colonization, and even the physics of sailing if you can and want to get into it. In fact, I think it’s enough to base an entire cycle of work around. I’m still taking comments about how to improve the game.

Mass, acceleration and Christmas trees

Combining math, science and culture. Christmas tree rocketry.

Auto-Tune and the trajectory of fads

This intelligently done history of Auto-Tune is wonderful for several reasons. First, it has a simple, elegantly executed story arc, where it describes the trajectory of a fad from introduction to over-exposure to parody/remix and finally to a new equilibrium. And it discusses these concepts in a clear and entertaining way.

Know Your Meme: Auto Tune (featuring “Weird Al” Yankovic) from Rocketboom on Vimeo.

Second, Auto-Tune is a great example of something that was created for one purpose but finds a new life in a completely different discipline. The technology was created for analyzing seismic signals in petroleum exploration before being applied to music. It is amazing what can come from working with people of diverse backgrounds, and having a broad appreciation of the world. Group work is important.

Third, in touching on parody, it brings up an issue that adolescents, in particular need to understand; parody is not just a cheap joke, it has something important to say. It uses humor to address significant issues:

While making fun of something is easy [mockery], parody requires a study of both technique and form, before creating its own recontextualization.

Third, the overexposure stage of fads and memes is something everyone should be aware of. The meme infiltrates so many aspects of the culture that it becomes irritating. As a Middle School teacher I see it primarily in the language my students use. By introducing this concept to my student, we now have a common language for talking about at least one type issues in the classroom.

Finally, equilibrium. An important concept in natural and social science, the concept is neatly encapsulated in how the fad starts off small, overshoots and gets smaller but does not disappear as there remains some lower level of use.