• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.146
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• pp.307-328
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• 2018

The use of thought experiments has a long history in many disciplines including science. In the field of philosophy, thought experiments have frequently appeared in the pre-existing literature on the contemporary Analytic Philosophy. A thought experiment refers to a synthetic environment where the designer of the experiment-with his or her intuition and imagination-tests common-sense knowledge. It can be understood as a conceptual tool for testing the validity of the common understanding of an issue or a phenomenon. However, we are not certain about the usefulness or efficacy of a thought experiment in knowledge production. The design of a thought experiment is meant to lure readers into believing as intended by the experiment itself. Thus, regardless of the purpose of a thought experiment, many readers who encounter the experiment could feel deceived. In this paper, to analyze the logic of thought experiments and to seek the source of uneasiness the readers and critics may feel about thought experiments, I draw lessons from three renowned thought-experiments: Thomson's 'ailing violinist', Putnam's 'brain in a vat', and Searle's 'Chinese room'. Imaginative thought experiments are usually constructed around a gap between the reality and the knowledge/information at hand. From the three experiments, several lessons can be learned. First, the evidence of the existence of a gap provided via thought experiments can serve as arguments for counterfactual situations. At the same time, the credibility and efficacy of the thought experiments can be damaged as soon as the thought-experiments are carried out with inappropriate and/or murky directions regarding the procedures of the experiment or the background of the study. According to D. R. Hofstadter and D. C. Dennett(1981), the 'knob setting' in a thought experiment can be altered in the middle of a simulation of the experimental condition, and then the implications of the thought experiment change altogether, indicating that an entirely different conclusion can be deduced from thought experiment. Lastly, some pre-suppositions and bias of the experiment designers play a considerable role in the validity and the chances of success of a thought experiment; thus, it is recommended that the experiment-designers refrain from exercising too much of their imagination in order to avoid contaminating the design of the experiment and/or wrongly accepting preconceived/misguided conclusions.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.814-819
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• 2004

Soft engineering, based on symbiotic coexistence of human, machines and environment, is a new engineering field to explore the proper technology and the proper way of engineering. To explore soft engineering intents easily, various robot projects at Pusan National University conducted are presented. Thought experiment, interactive e-leaning, rapid prototyping engineering, biomimciry, tangibility, and ubiquity are concepts to be explored. Thought experiments projects are organized and performed, which include robot assembly game, Turing test, and robotics in science fiction. "Junk robot project" and "ubiquitous Pusan National University (u-PNU) project" have been organized. Also, bug robot project, interactive robot project, and interactive emotional robot projects are introduced. Weekly science fiction films are shown and discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.277-286
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• 2004

This study investigated the types and frequencies of student-student questioning (SSQ) in a small group activities, 5 in one group or 2 in one group, during school experiments. Five girls of seventh grade were observed during school experiments and interviewed afterward. Between students, information-type questions were asked more frequently than thought-type questions. Most of the information-type questions were procedural ones and most of the thought-type questions were comprehension ones. However, thought-type questions did not make further discussion in the activities. The rate of answers in the case of 2 in one group was higher than that of 5 in one group. Moreover, the similar tendency was found when we investigated the rate of helpful question-answers. In a pair, lower achiever usually asked questions, not answered as much as in 5 in one group, and higher achiever answered. The frequency of SSQ in a pair was relatively low when there was a big difference of science achievements between pair members. In conclusion, information-type questions were asked more frequently than thought-type questions during school experiments and the rate of helpful question-answers was higher when group members was fewer.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2007

The aim of this study was to investigate teachers' perceptions on MBL (microcomputer-based laboratory) experiment training program for teachers, the expecting effects of MBL experiment and application of MBL experiment after conducting MBL experiment training for science classes in schools. This study showed that most of the teachers who participated in the training program thought that the MBL experiment training program was very useful and instructive. Many teachers considered that MBL experiments using a computer could decrease time spent in the experiment by accurate and fast data collection and analysis. They also thought that the reduced time could be used more effectively in the analysis of experimental data and discussion activities leading to correct concept formation as well as in the development of graphical analysis and science process skills. However, they thought that MBL experiments were ineffective in learning how to operate experiment apparatus. This study also revealed that most teachers intended to apply MBL experiments in real classrooms context right after the training course and they pointed out many obstacles in introducing MBL experiments into their classrooms such as a budget to purchase equipment, poor laboratory conditions, and few MBL experiment training opportunities. In order to apply MBL experiment into the real classrooms, further changes were suggested as follows; development of technologies to reduce unit cost of equipment for MBL experiments, production and supply of many kinds of sensors, development of MBL experiment materials, and expansion of the training program for teachers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.107-115
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• 2018

To learn the Earth's shape is a very important achievement standard in the earth science education. The purpose of this study is for helping school experiments by investigating effective experiments of the Earth's shape of each stage of school. Researchers suggest various experiment methods to learn the Earth's shape and investigated appropriate experiments to stage of elementary school, secondary school, high school and university for 26 pre-service teachers. As a result, there is difference between schools in effective experiments of the Earth's shape. Pre-service teachers thought that to observe a sail of ship to come back to a harbour is effective for elementary school students. And they responded that to compare the altitude of the polar star by latitudes is good for the secondary and high school students and to compare difference of sight according to height of the ground is effective for university students. They thought that level of the experiment method, abstract thinking and depth of background knowledge should be considered when teachers choose an effective experiment of the Earth's shape.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.508-519
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• 2015

In this study, the pre-service chemistry teachers’ understanding of potential energy curve was investigated. The subjects were 24 junior students and 26 senior students studying chemistry education in a college of education. A concept questionnaire consisted of thought experiments with different initial conditions was developed to survey the pre-service teachers’ conceptions of potential energy curve. The survey results showed that the pre-service chemistry teachers had difficulties to accept the negative values for potential energy and total energy. And they knew the mechanical energy conservation but they could not apply it properly to the thought experiment situations given in the questionnaire. Also they had the knowledge about the direction of force exerted between the two balls, but many of them believed that the balls would stop moving at the bottom of potential energy curve well. In addition, it was discovered that few pre-service teachers could relate the thought experiments to the chemical bonding, the liquefaction of gas, and the molecular vibration.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.189-203
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• 2011

The object of this study is to investigate the views of scientifically gifted children about the purpose of scientists' experiments and school science experiments. The children's views were examined using a open-ended questionnaire survey. And then the responses from the children were analyzed with categorization. The results from the study are as follows: First, the children's views about the purpose of scientists' experiments and school science experiments were classified to 2 top-level, 5 mid-level and 21 sub-level categories. Second, it was found that the children considered internal values of doing experiments are more worthy than the social and personal usefulness of the experiments. Third, the gifted children mentioned most frequently that the purposes of the scientist experiment is 'to get the evidences for their theory and argument which is unusual in the regular children's views. Also the discovery of new phenomena and materials, and the generation of new theories and ideas were mentioned as purposes of the scientist experiments. Fourth, the students frequently stated that school science experiments support effective learning of science subject enhancing subject interests and better explanation/understanding. Fifth, relatively many students thought that the purposes of school science experiments are different with those of scientist experiments. Based on the results from the study, some educational suggestions are discussed.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.78-86
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• 2021

Personal space is an invisible space around people and plays an important role in human communication. Individual spaces are known to change according to gender and relationships in communication between people. This study examines whether such personal space exists between characters on a metabus. Gender participants took up short personal space, and female participants found that on the Metabus, they changed their personal space according to their intimacy or gender with other people's characters rather than their own. Male participants are thought to change their personal space according to their personality in case of reason in Metabus. From this, it is thought that the participant continues to have physicality, just as the meta-bus actually has a body. Female participants found that in Metabuses, as in the real world, gender between characters has a similar short personal space, rather than gender, and intimacy between characters. In the case of male participants, it was shown that the closeness between the characters was similar to that of the personal space, but the gender of other characters did not change the personal space. Future validation of personal space for metabus characters requires comparison of shapes of individual spaces and cultures, such as individual characteristics, such as introduction and extroversion of individual space, and experiments of gender. In this experiment, the number of female experiment participants is strongly required in future experiments, as compared with male experiment participants, and the need for various cultural experiments is also required.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

The universe is thought to be filled with not only Standard Model (SM) matters but also dark matters. Dark matter is thought to play a major role in its construction. However, the identity of dark matter is as yet unknown, with various search methods from astrophysical observartion to particle collider experiments. Because of the cross-section that is a thousand times smaller than SM particles, dark matter research requires a large amount of data processing. Therefore, optimization and parallelization in High Performance Computing is required. Dark matter in hypothetical hidden sector is though to be connected to dark photons which carries forces similar to photons in electromagnetism. In the recent analysis, it was studied using the decays of a dark photon at collider experiments. Based on this, we studies double dark photon decays at lepton colliders. The signal channels are e⁺e^- → A'A' and e⁺e^- → A'A'γ where dark photon A' decays dimuon. These signal channels are based on the theory that dark photons only decay into heavily charged leptons, which can explain the muon magnetic momentum anomaly. We scanned the cross-section according to the dark photon mass in experiments. MadGraph5 was used to generate events based on a simplified model. Additionally, to get the maximum expected number of events for the double dark photon channel, the detector efficiency for several center of mass (CM) energy were studied using Delphes and MadAnalysis5 for performance comparison. The results of this study will contribute to the search for double dark photon channels at lepton colliders.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.297-304
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• 2020

This study is to find out experiments of Earth's revolution and which experiment is effective by school level. Researcher investigated and developed eight experiments for students to learn Earth's revolution. Twenty six pre-service teachers did these experiments, discuss about them, chose an effective experiment of Earth's revolution and wrote the reason why. As a result, they thought that an experiment of seasonal constellations is effective for elementary school students, an experiment of seasonal star's spectrum is effective for secondary school students and an experiment of the superior planets' retrograde motion is effective for university students. Pre-service teachers gave reasons such as hands-on experience, connection with textbooks, background knowledge and higher-level thinking.