Science primers

I attended Oakland University (OU) as an undergraduate and graduate student, and post-grad researcher from 1981-1988. Paul A. Tipler, PhD, was a tenured, full Professor of Physics there for many years, his last year overlapping the first part of my time-interval there. He then went to Berkeley, CA. Dr. Tipler had a great personality and enjoyed discussing various topics with students. As a grad student, I purchased a copy this (2nd) edition of Dr. Tipler's book when it came out, to tutor students in Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering. This is a Calculus-based Physics text used for teaching two semesters of introductory, Calculus-based Physics. It is approximately 1000 pages long, and is excellently-written with colored diagrams and historic photos, to accompany the text describing the topics covered. The equations are well-derived. It uses the SI metric system of units, and has answers to most odd-numbered problems in the back of the book. Mark G. Scheuern, a colleague of mine who also received his B.S. and M.S. Degrees in Physics from OU, solved the even-numbered problems for Dr. Tipler, and his answers were published in a separate "Solutions Manual". Dr. Tipler's book is very detailed, easy to read, and provides students and professors with a great reference for introductory, Calculus-based Physics. I highly recommend text books written by Dr. Paul A. Tipler, especially his textbook on Modern Physics, covering Special Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, etc. Dale O. Brandt, B.S., M.S. Degrees in Physics from Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, 48309

The community of inquiry (CoI) is a concept first introduced by early pragmatist philosophers C.S.Peirce and John Dewey, concerning the nature of knowledge formation and the process of scientific inquiry. The community of inquiry is broadly defined as any group of individuals involved in a process of empirical or conceptual inquiry into problematic situations. This concept was novel in its emphasis on the social quality and contingency of knowledge formation in the sciences, contrary to the Cartesian model of science, which assumes a fixed, unchanging reality that is objectively knowable by rational observers. The community of inquiry emphasizes that knowledge is necessarily embedded within a social context and, thus, requires intersubjective agreement among those involved in the process of inquiry for legitimacy. While Peirce originally intended the concept of the community of inquiry as a way to model the natural sciences, the concept has been borrowed, adapted, and applied in many different fields such as education (by Matthew Lipman in Philosophy for Children movement) and public administration.

Glochidion is a genus of flowering plants in the family Phyllanthaceae, known as cheese trees or buttonwood in Australia, and leafflower trees in the scientific literature. It comprises about 170 species, distributed from Madagascar to the Pacific Islands. Glochidion species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Aenetus eximia and Endoclita damor. The Nicobarese people have attested to the medicinal properties found in G. calocarpum, saying that its bark and seed are most effective in curing abdominal disorders associated with amoebiasis. Glochidion are of note in the fields of pollination biology and coevolution because they have a specialized mutualism with moths in the genus Epicephala (leafflower moths), in which the moths actively pollinate the flowers—thereby ensuring that the tree may produce viable seeds—but also lay eggs in the flowers' ovaries, where their larvae consume a subset of the developing seeds as nourishment.