Pendulum Motion

Before I read this article I never gave much thought to the pendulum. I knew what it was but never knew what it was really made for. I was so astonished to learn that Galileo used this to keep track of time. Time is something that I never think about a person creating. It's a pretty amazing concept to come up with. This article talks about the importance of time when it comes to scientific purposes and lists 5 examples in which time is crucial for investigating. I thought the most interesting one was the radial movement of planets over time. Space exploration blows my mind. When Galileo started using the pendulum to keep track of time it really made a difference in sea travel. Without this traveling by sea was very dangerous and hard to keep track of the ships place in the ocean. I never even thought time would play a role in determining latitude and longitude while at sea but after reading this article it made so much sense. 

I thought the article overall was hard to interpret. I think it made some great points but some parts were bogged down with complicated language that didn't seem necessary. I did like the correlation of science to social and economic problems. This was in regards to sea traveling and the time of Galileos era but I think this is evident still today. I kept thinking about science in the present time and new ways of creating energy is so emphasized today. Creating and using solar power and not relying on foreign oil are social/economic problems that scientists work towards fixing today.