Ledgerwood Eamon Barkhordarian

Period D 10/1/09
Chem 1 H

Mystery Box Questions

1. The moving parts inside the box helped me infer the internal structure because I used my

senses to guess what was inside. By turning, spinning, and shaking the contents of the

box, the feel, sound and weight all became factors that helped me guess what was inside

the box. If I shook it and I could tell the object didn’t hit the other side, I knew there was

a partition in the middle. If I shook it and very little noise was made, I knew much wasn’t

inside.

2. I was limited to only being able to use two of my senses to determine what was inside the

box. I wouldn’t smell, see, or taste what was in the box because a brown paper cover was

surrounding the box, preventing me from either smelling tasting, or seeing the contents

inside. I was limited to only feeling/touching, and hearing. By shaking the box I would

hear how loud the sound would be, which would help me determine how large and how

many objects were inside. I also could try and feel if there was a partition and if the

objects were hard enough I could feel it against my palm when I was holding the box.

3. My observations are considered to be indirect because I never actually got to see what

was in the box. I had to use my sense and guess the entire time. It would be considered a

direct observation if I directly saw the object and took notes on it, but that was not the

case.

4. We could not tell for example the color of the object inside the box without first looking.

There could be no test we could possibly perform to give us the color of the objects

inside. Also, the shape thickness of the objects could not be determined due to the fact

that we are limited on many things if we cannot see them in the first place.

5. I don’t believe we could have inferred the internal structure of the mystery box without

looking if it had no moving parts. If I shook it and I didn’t not hear anything move, I
Ledgerwood Eamon Barkhordarian
Period D 10/1/09
Chem 1 H
could only infer that there is nothing inside. There is nothing that can tell me if there IS

something inside, but its just connected to the inside of the box and is not moving. So if I

am limited to only touch and hearing and the object inside doesn’t make a sound, then it

would be almost impossible for me to infer the structure of that object.

6. Rutherford had very little idea of what was inside an atom for at the time, almost no

information was available about it. That is similar to out mystery box because we had

very little idea of what was inside. Rutherford had to conduct a series of experiments on

the atom in order to get an idea of what was inside. We had to do the same using our

senses to develop an idea of the objects inside the box.