Monday, November 14, 2005

History and more

Within Anthropology, particularly Demography, I've started to make space for the basic demographic processes; birth, aging, death, and migration.

Within economics, I finished a preliminary look at types fo economic systems, and I also finished a basic review of religion.

I also have a note on the city of London.

I finished a review of the highest level of history. This does not depend too heavily on the physical and natural sciences, except for methods of dating. The area that is sometimes called "big history" attempts to connect the history of nature to human history, but I have a little bit of distaste for this approach.
Studies of the human body and psychology are at rather too low a level to be useful in history, but the biography list is a very useful tool for examining who was important when. Many of the processes that drive history, such as population growth, climate change, and the growth of socially influential groups, can be studied using means of anthropology. The use of language, literature, concepts, and philosophy, various occupations, motion pictures, and the use of artifacts in archeological reconstructions of history are all important aids. The use of family studies in history is comparatively neglected except at the level of ruling families. Educational and academic endeavors, and economic history is less often used than political history, and religious approaches are also often neglected. Investigation of social structure and change, specific communities, and peoples of the world are also necessary in investigation of history. I may have mentioned these aids earlier, but these illustrate the connections of the many other areas of knowledge to history.

In Antiquity, I've started a closer look at the late 3rd millennium BC, and I'm going to have to do the summary when I've finished taking this look.

Moving on to the next cycle, I'm reasonably pleased the way I've been able to keep various tracks moving forward so that I'm not concentrating excessively on one end of my knowledge base. This has been a big problem before.

Within science, I'm reasonably pleased with how things are going. I have study tracks going on all the basic physical sciences, but I will be putting increasing emphasis on the Earth sciences and Biology.

Within particle kinematics, I've finished my review of velocity-related quantities.
I'm also beginning to look more closely at electrodnamics (electric current, that is), with current definition, EMF (electromotive force), resistance and related quantities, DC circuits, and AC circuits, all of which I've studied before, but need a better review so I can use them.

I'm also looking at Molecular physics, with areas of chemical bonding, structure of molecules, and molecular behavior. This area has a substantial overlap with chemistry, and a lot of the information on it will be coming from chemistry texts, rather than physics.

In Earth science, I'm looking at oceanography, including seawater, waves, tides, and currents. This isn't exactly analogoues to geology, although I would make it so if I could.
In accordance with the intension of expanding my coverage of this area, I'm also starting a physical geography track so I can start considering the earth science of specific places.

And, in Biology, I've finished preparations for studies of communities, to be picked up again later.

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