Research Paper

Research Paper Research Paper Matt McMahon Ms. Cooley Writing for College 16 December 2010 The Life of a New York City Fireman Every young boy has a specific person who he feels is his hero. Many of these heroes are seen on TV or in comic books. At a young age, these characters are referred to as superheroes. As these kids grow older, their views of idols change into professional sports players like Derek Jeter, Lebron James or Sidney Crosby. Once kids hit a certain age they don’t believe in the superheroes, they just have heroes from movies and sports. The funny thing is superheroes do exist and always have. Just because they cant fly and pick up buildings doesn’t mean they are any less heroic than the ones who can in comic books. When someone is in danger or in any type of life threatening situation, they depend on police officers and firefighters to be there for their safety. The system works much like how it did on cartoons or in comic books for that matter. When someone is in distress t hey call 911 who gets the information and refers it to a local fire departments dispatch. The dispatch then sends the call out to the fireman who race to report to the scene as fast as they can. Although being a firefighter is not as easy as it looks or sounds. Being a New York City firefighter is very different from any other job in the world. People go to their normal job about five days a week for about an eight hour shift. Being a firefighter isn't any normal job. The shifts research paper research paper Coming to a division three college as a student athlete was a difficult choice. This was mainly because I knew that in division three there were no athletic scholarships given, unlike division one and two. This made college more expensive for me, and definitely weighed in on my decision on what college to attend. Many people will argue that athletics are not an important part of a child and students career for many reasons. Most people who choose this viewpoint believe that it distracts the student from their academics, therefore damaging their future. The people who believe this agree that students should be studying instead of practicing their sport or playing in events. Therefore, why should athletic scholarships be given out? This would encourage students to practice even harder and longer to be able to achieve a talent good enough to be rewarded with a scholarship. Another reason people might be against athletic scholarships is because it would save the college money by not giving students free tuition. If the college did not give out athletic scholarships, they could save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. This money could go to things such as academic tuition, building funds, or previous debts owned by the school. Although both of these arguments are valid, I believe there are strong counterarguments to each one. What many people don’t understand is that athletics encourage more than just physical toughness. I have learned that athletics have taught me much more than that; they have taught me perseverance, how to be supportive, and that hard work pays off. Also, student athletes are well rounded and have knowledge of time management. Student athletes are forced work hard in their academics in order to stay on the team. If you receive under a two point five GPA, you are ineligible to play for the team. This results in student athletes having some of the highest GPAs in colleges. When people try and Research Paper Research Paper Research Paper Why Richard Rodriguez? Why does his work catch my eye? What makes his work more prominent than other authors? I can’t persuade one to change his/her opinion on the interest of his/her author. I can however provide details on how mine is a work of art. Richard Rodriguez, a man with no shame, splendid powers of deduction, and innovative writing. My reasoning shall be revealed in due time. Rodriguez has really enthused my writing. He has given me a more creative, and more, in-depth kind of thinking in my writing. His race and his sexuality are just assets to the man with the ink. What do I mean? I mean that others could be prejudice to either his ethnicity or homosexuality. Revealing one’s identity of sexuality is crucial in a career where people throughout the world criticize it. A good example of this is, Adam Lambert. A star who was contesting in and was supposedly going to win the hit show American Idol until he revealed his sexuality. Some say he was go ing to win and others say that has nothing to do with it. Now, I deem myself as a respectful and understanding guy. Therefore, I don’t judge the man himself (why would I be writing about him if I was), I judge his work. Some of the works I will be critiquing are a few essays, Cowboys and Indians, which is one of his more recent works, Se Habla Espanol, Zero Times One and a chapter out of his most famous work, Hunger of Memory. I’ve specifically chosen articles that are spread out through his career. Even though these four articles are spread through a decade of time, it is still noteworthy to evaluate to his progression in writing. Each of these writings are different, but cover the same idea. Rodriguez is Spanish (the Mexican descent) and he is a homosexual. Is that all there is to know though? Of course it is! What else could there be to know about an author? Sarcasm, that is what modern terminology defines as being ignorant, or hilarious, or both. As I said before, Rodriguez has enthused my writing, so there must be more to him. Well, Rodriguez’s home life and family life was what you’d imagine it to be a Mexican growing up in America, tough, to say the least. Having to deal with common Research Paper Research Paper Athletic Performance Using mind body connection The mind is a powerful tool. Athletes who are able to effectively use their mind have more success than those who cannot. Athletic performance can actually be improved using the connection between the mind and the body. That mind-body connection has given athletes positive reproducible results time and time again. The only barrier in the way of the athlete is learning the process that improves athletic performance by enabling the mind-body connection. Our minds tell our bodies what to do and how to react. For instance, athletic performance increases when the athlete links the mind-body connection and visualizes the specific event in their minds several times before the actual event. An Athlete’s Secret Weapon – Visualization What can an athlete do to gain the upper hand over his or her opponent who has the same fitness level, nutrition regime, and game experience? This is where sports psychology comes into play. An athlete can rise to the next level and surpass their opponents with the use of mental preparation. Visualization, also known as guided imagery, enables an athlete to create clear detailed images in their mind that they want to manifest as reality during their game. Using imagery, an athlete can put themselves in every situation possible and practice responding successfully. The outcome is reduced anxiety and mental involvement before ever stepping onto the playing field. Developing High Levels of Confidence Confidence is the keystone to performing at your best. When athletes are confident, their mind and body are relaxed allowing them to perform at their best. A confident athlete has been defined as "being able to be positive, motivated, focused, and emotionally in control when they need to be. There are a few things that can be done to ensure you have the highest level of confidence possible. First of all, engineer your approach to competition so that you are doing things that you have already successfully done in the past. Just knowing that you done it successfully before, will give you confidence. When you are reviewing your performance in your head, see it working perfectly. A confident athlete has the belief that he/she has what it takes to be successful no matter what is happening on the field/court. The combination of confidence and a positive mind set Research Paper Research Paper JUDAISM, CHRISTINAITY & ISLAM Raquita Fleming Religion & Philosophy Father Yarisah September 2, 2013 We have so many different religions out here in today’s society there is a lot and you may wonder why we don’t have just one. Well I am here to explain why not and I will be comparing and contrasting three monotheistic religions which are: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I will discuss the uniqueness of each religion regarding their beliefs and basic teachings. Also will be talking about each religion background information, on how they religion got started. Who were their founding fathers and how where they able to find their religion. I will explain the symbols and they kinds of food that each religion is alike and don’t eat alike. The first Religion I will talk about is Judaism it was formed 1300 B.C which is one of the most scholar date Abraham who was one of their forefathers. There is set to believe that there could be four founding fathers of Judaism. Who are God, Moses, Abraham and historical authorities? The original language of Judaism is Hebrews. The origin of Judaism is Canaan and that is a biblical name for the religion. That came about because of the Jordan and the Mediterranean River. The symbol for Judaism is the â€Å"Star of David†. The Star of David is a six pointed star made up of two triangles. Sometimes they refer the Star of David being called Megan David. Which in Judaism means the â€Å"Shield of David†? some Christians and Muslims have used the Star of David in previous years also sometimes associated with the King Of Solomon instead of King David. The sacred text is Tanakh which is an acronym of The Bible name Torah Nevi’im and Ketuvim. Our first five bibles are names after the Torah; Exodus, Numbers Leviticus, Genesis, and Deuteronomy. The place where the Jews worship is called the synagogue or sometimes the temple. There holy days are called Passover and Hanukkah. The Talmud was also the oral Torah and was compared to the rabbinical commentary. The leaders of Judaism are called Rabbis. Judaism today is much better and it is one the oldest religion that still exists today. Judaism started in a small nation by the Hebrews. So many years had passed with the Jews going through rough times. They suffered dispersion, persecution and occasional victory. As we look on the religion today we have at least 14 million Jews. Today is more complex which incorporates both nation and religion. This all comes down to strict adherence and ritual laws with more liberal attitude on religion beliefs. Judaism has been a major part in shaping the world today this is not in common western categories like race, religion, ethnicity or culture. Unlike Christians Judaism have been influenced by so many different contacts like Egyptians, Babylon and Persians. Christianity was formed 33 C.E and it was known for the traditional date for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The founders of Christianity are Jesus, Peter and Paul. Many different scholars date the rise of Christianity as a r eligious belief system. Some of holy days are ester, Christmas, Good Friday, Palm Sunday and Ash Wednesday. Then in the first century under the leadership went over to apostles. Most Christian’s beliefs were center on the life of Jesus of Nazareth he was a teacher and he healed the first century Palestine. The symbol for Christianity is a Cross, and Dove some people claim their can be more. But the more common one is the cross that everyone can recognize. Teachings based on the themes of the kingdom of god, love of god and love of thy neighbor. We as Christians believed that Jesus rose from the dead three days after his burial, and made it possible for those who believed that sins can be forgiven and attain eternal life. The distinctive belief of mainstream of Christianity if the doctrine of Trinity. Meaning we view god as one god consisting of the three persons; the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. We as Christians Research Paper Research Paper The Atrocities at My Lai Massacre During the Vietnam War, there were lots of corruption and violence taking place. As an outcome of this war, there were many events and tragedies that are still remembered and looked back upon, but one act of cruelty stands above all the others. Because of the inhumane actions that were taken by U.S. forces, the corrupt leadership of Lieutenant Calley and the fact that this massacre was covered up from society for over a year, the My Lai massacre became know as the worst atrocity that occurred during the Vietnam War. To start off, the mass destruction that took place during the My Lai Massacre shows that this was in fact, the worst atrocity that took place during the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1968, U.S. soldiers entered the village of My Lai in northern South Vietnam. The soldiers had been searching for threats within the village, but soon determined that the women, children and elders living there, were not dangerous. ‘But rather than move on, the soldiers abruptly went on a murderous killing spree, massacring between 300 and 500 unarmed villagers over a period of several hours’ (Russell 703). Innocent unarmed people were murdered that day, with no means of protecting themselves. Hundreds of innocent people were slaughtered, â€Å"In terms of numbers of slain, the My Lai Massacre is by far the worst known U.S. atrocity case of the Vietnam War† (Cook and Martin 217). Not only did the soldiers murder hundreds of innocent people, but they also tortured them and forced them to suffer: During this time, the soldiers torched houses, raped dozens of women and children, and shot or stabbed terrified villagers who tried to escape. The American troops executed most of the villagers by lining them up in ditches and shooting them in heavy bursts of rifle fire (Hillstrom and Hillstrom 212). These inhumane actions taken by the U.S. forces in My Lai, are one of the main reasons that the My Lai Massacre is known to be the worst atrocity that occurred during the Vietnam War. This event was not only sick and cruel, but could also represent everything that was wrong with the Vietnam W ar. Ronald L. Haeberle was a photographer for the United States Army, and unfortunately, had a firsthand experience of witnessing the spiteful execution of these innocent people at My Lai. â€Å"Haeberle said that no Viet Cong were sighted nor were there any reports of Viet Cong fire in the village† (Cook and Martin 217). There was clear evidence that shows that no Viet Cong or even armed people were present when this massacre took place. â€Å"U.S. forces, Haeberle related, mechanically killed the civilians, some in their beds in huts. The murders were carried out; he said, with M-16 rifles and machine guns† (Cook and Martin 217). Not only were these people killed, but they were humiliated and treated much less than a person. It was much more than soldiers doing their duties, it was inhumane and unethical. â€Å"He said he saw as many as 30 American soldiers’ murder as many as 100 South Vietnamese civilians, many of them women or babies, many left in lifeless clumps. He describes the soldiers who did the shooting as ‘intent on what they were trying to accomplish. There was no feeling, nothing human about it. It was, for the most part, grim, though later some of the men tried to be humorous about leaving the bodies for the dogs and the rats’† (Cook and Martin 219). Soldiers recklessly lost control of themselves and took out all of their anger on the lives of these unarmed, innocent women, children and elders. GI’s forced these people to not only die, but to suffer as well. â€Å"‘The GI’s found a group of people- mothers, children, and their daughters. This GI grabbed one of the girls, in her teens, and started stripping her, playing around. They said they wanted to see what she was made of and stuff like that’† (Cook and Mart in 219). It was obvious that the U.S. soldiers acted excessively violent and took out all of their anger on innocent Research Paper Research Paper The Periodic Table and the Aufbau One of the biggest topics in the teaching and learning of chemistry is the use of the aufbau principle to predict the electronic configurations of atoms and to explain the periodic table of the elements. This method has been taught to many generations of students and is a favorite among instructors and textbooks when it comes to setting questions. In this blog I am going to attempt to blow the lid off the aufbau because it is deeply flawed, or at least the sloppy version of the aufbau. The flaw is rather subtle and seems to have escaped the attention of nearly all chemistry and physics textbooks and the vast majority of chemistry professors that I have consulted on the subject. The error comes from what may be an innocent attempt to simplify matters or maybe just an understandable slip as I will try to explain. Whatever the cause there is no excuse for perpetuating this educational myth. So what’s the problem? The aufbau method was originally proposed by the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr who was the first to bring quantum mechanics to the study of atomic structure and one of the first to give a fundamental explanation of the periodic table in terms of arrangements of electrons (electronic configurations). Bohr proposed that we can think of the atoms of the periodic table as being progressively built up starting from the simplest atom of all, that of hydrogen which contains just one proton and one electron. The other atoms differ from hydrogen by the addition of one proton and one electron. Helium has two protons and two electrons, lithium has three of each, beryllium has four of each, all the way to uranium which at that time, (1913), was the heaviest known atom, weighing in at 92 protons and 92 electrons. Neutron numbers vary and are quite irrelevant to this story incidentally. The next ingredient is a knowledge of the atomic orbitals into which the electrons are progressively placed in an attempt to reproduce the natural sequence of electrons in atoms that occur in the real world. Oddly enough these orbitals, at least in their simplest form, nowadays come from solving the Schrà ¶dinger equation for the hydrogen atom but let’s not get too sidetracked for the moment. The orbitals The different atomic orbitals come in various kinds that are distinguished by labels such as s, p, d and f. Each shell of electrons can be broken down into various orbitals and as we move away from the nucleus each shell contains a progressively larger number of kinds of orbitals. Here is the well-known scheme, First shell contains 1s orbital only Second shell contains 2s and 2p orbitals Third shell contains 3s, 3p and 3d orbitals Fourth shell contains 4s, 4p, 4d and 4f orbitals and so on. The next part is that one needs to know how many of these orbitals occur in each shell. The answer is provided by the simple formula 2ï  ¬Ã¯â‚¬  + 1 where ï  ¬ takes different values depending on whether we are speaking of s, p, d or f orbitals. For s orbitals ï  ¬ = 0, for p orbitals ï  ¬ = 1, for d orbitals ï  ¬ = 2 and so on. As a result there are potentially one s orbital, three p orbitals, five d orbitals, seven f orbitals and so on for each shell. So far so good. Now comes the magic ingredient which claims to predict the order of filling of these orbitals and here is where the fallacy lurks. Rather than filling the shells around the nucleus in a simple sequential sequence, where each shell must fill completely before moving onto the next shell, we are told that the correct procedure is more complicated. But we are also reassured that there is a nice simple pattern that governs the order of shell and consequently of orbitals filling. And this is finally the point at which the aufbau diagram, which I am going to claim lies at the heart of the trouble, is trotted out. The order of filling of