Wright State University Lake Campus/2015-9/Phy1050
Phy 1050 Fall 2015
mon 8/31
editWent over syllabus and looked at first question in
tues 9/1
editUse this resource,
Wikibooks:FHSST_Physics/Rectilinear_Motion/Graphs
to solve these problems:
How things work college course/Motion simple arithmetic quiz
Physics is about generalizing something simple to something abstract.
- If I travel 50 miles per hour for 3 hours, I travel 150 miles.
- d = vt where d is distance, v is velocity, and t is time.
- This method only works if one travels at the same speed. Let's try another way to get the same answer.
- The area of a rectangle is base x height. Thefore the distance traveled is the area under a curve of velocity (on the vertical axis) plotted against time (on the horizontal axis).
- The simplest generalization of this rectangle-area rule is to plot velocity versus time and calculate the area.
- Does it work? Yes, but explaining why is beyond the scope of this course.
wed 9/5
editSolutions to this wikiquiz
is now available at
Got to question 7 on
- How things work college course/Waves (Physics Classroom)
For more info on this see
thu 9/10
editUsing Excel to add waves.
editMeasuring the octave and the fifth with slide whistles
editMon 9/14 Test questions
editSend B3dy linke to newtons dark secretes with instructions.
Tue 9/15: Newton's Dark Secrets
editThu 9/17: Plane mirror image lab
editNicky Walker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEB8ndiTMlc
Tue 9/22: diffraction with a laser
edit-
Single_and_double_slit_4.jpg
-
Young.gif
Continue with daily lecture: Bell's theorem/Introduction See spooky 1909 experiment:
- How_things_work_college_course/Quantum_mechanics_timeline#Taylor_makes_things_spooky_with_very_dim_light_in_1909
- Diffraction in ocean waves
http://resource.isvr.soton.ac.uk/spcg/tutorial/tutorial/Tutorial_files/diffractmovmov.gif
Results: We bent light around a raser blade and observed a diffraction pattern of unknown origin on one side. We cut a slit in aluminum foil of thickness between .1 and .3 mm (maybe smaller?) and observed two clear minima (one on each side).
Update on diffraction experiment: We got a two slit experiment to work and the numbers came out well. We used two holes, as Young did circa 1790. It was necessary to use a mirror to triple the path disance in order to get fringes (bright and dark patterns) that we could measure easily.
Thu 9/24: Lab reports
edit- Refraction lab
- Make a sketch showing why a swimming pool looks shallow. Draw a sketch with the incident and refracted ray that demonstrates how light bends towards the normal when traveling from air (vacuum) into glass (water).
- Lab reports
- Your lab report counts for a large part of your lab grade. Extra credit is possible, but only if the effort is truly extraordinary. To get a top grade you need to be useful and do something that improves this course.
- Ideas on how to be useful:
- Work with a team to ensure your efforts don't overlap with that of others. It's also easier for the instructor to consult with a group of people. Be sure to credit others for imput they gave you on your aspect of the project.
- Pick a specific goal. Do you want to write more multiple choice questions? Do you want to write a page for Wikiversity? Do you want to repair questions already in the quiz bank?
- Choose your project carefully, in consultation with the instructor. Get permission from your instructor if the project is not on this list.
- Focus on what needs to be done, not what is easy to do. Sometimes it's better to begin an important project and leave it unfinished than to complete a project that is not needed.
List of projects approved by the instructor
edit- Improve the unit based on Wikipedia:Industrial Revolution.
- Write more multiple choice questions
- Find a related topic concerning the Industrial Revolution that was not covered and start an essay on it that will appear in Wikiversity. Eventually we will want to add multiple choice questions. Keep in mind that this is a science course: Your topic should enhance people's understand of basic science. Ideas: How is steel made and why does it behave that way? How did basic science benefit from, or contribute to, the Industrial Revolution?
- How has the article changed since this permalink, which was the page used to write this quiz
- Improve Bell's theorem as per Talk:Bell's_theorem#This_Wikiversity_resource_needs_a_makeover. Please take this project if you like math and still don't quite understand what Bell's theorem is all about
Mon 10/12: Computers
edit- Wikipedia:Harvard Computers The first computers were people who computed.
- Wikipedia:Nautical almanac used primarily to find longitude, with the help of a clock.
- Easy to find Latitude by looking at north star or the sun. Finding Longitude was much more difficult
- image
- babbage difference engine
- Wikipedia:Marine chronometer Navigation required a good clock. See also Wikipedia:History of longitude
Tues 10/13
editRay diagrams with converging lens from dev.physicslab.org
Did not cover today:
Blind spot
editlater
Bell's theorem and probability
editwill review a bit. did some of this.
- Wikipedia:Conditional probability is long and boring and demonstrates why we need Wikiversity and Wikibooks.
- Wikibooks:Probability/Conditional Probability is much better.
- Here is a useful application of Wikipedia
- Bell's theorem uses the laws of probability to prove that what photons do is "impossible", unless photons have either telepathic skills or precognition (or both).
- Does that mean that people can have such skills? That is a question for you to decide, but your instructor believes the answer is No, not because it would violate the laws of physics, but because honest researchers have looked and failed to find any evidence. And this lack of evidence has been repeated many times by many researchers, over a span of many years. (Just my opinion).
Mon 10/19
editlater
edit- Review one fact about Bell's theorem
- Babbage Difference Engine video
- Colossus short video
- Turing machine model video
Tue 10/27
editWhat is the coincidence?
editfrom http://members.bitstream.net/~bunlion/bpi/EclSaros.html
By "coincidence", these cycles all repeat nearly exactly every 18+ years. This is because:
- 223 Synodic Months = 6585 days, 7 hours, 43+ minutes,
- 19 Draconic Years = 6585 days, 18 hours, 44+ minutes,
- 239 Anomalistic Months = 6585 days, 12 hours, 53+ minutes.
Tue 11/3
editangels and demons (computers down)
Thu 10/5
editGlobal warming: Compare two graphs:
Tue 11/17
editPlaying with circuits. The voltage divider.
-
Deliberately left out needed wires
-
Ground wires included
Things you should think about
edit- Batteries and other sources of electrical power create something called a "voltage" between two wires.
- Energy is delivered to something called a "load". A load might be a motor, a heating element, or a light bulb. The symbol for volatage is called V or sometimes U. The units are also called "volts" with the symbol V. To avoid confusion, we will use the word "volts". V=9volts means that there are 9 volts between two wires.
- Every time a charge carrying particle (usually an electron) passes through the load, energy is delivered.
- Current, called I is measured in amps (often written A). I=3amps tells us that the current is 3 amps through a point in the wire.
- Current is directly proportional to the number of electrons flowing through a wire.
- In almost all cases, the current that flows into a load equals the current that flows out. This rule is true for any circuit you are likely to encounter.
- Power is IV or current times voltage.
- A voltage divider is a circuit designed to reduce the voltage. They are not the best way to do this because they waste energy and because the load reduces the voltage.
- All voltage sources drop in voltage if they draw current.
12/1 Tue: Why Bach sounds funny on the piano
editTalks http://www.wright.edu/~guy.vandegrift/Talks/index.htm
- natural 5/3 = 1.6667... http://www.wright.edu/~guy.vandegrift/Talks/cello.mp3
- scientific 29/12 = 1.681793...http://www.wright.edu/~guy.vandegrift/Talks/piano.mp3
Caterpillar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITqv3ey3h50
as Bach wrote it http://www.wimmercello.com/images/bachs1a.gif
12/3 Thu: Beethoven and the Uncertainty Principle
editPhysics and Astronomy Labs/Heisenberg's uncertainty and Beethoven's fugue