IB Physics 1 -- HL/SL
|
Fourth Quarter Grading Period
Mar 14 to Jun 2, 2015
Tues, Mar 15
Due:
- HW Lsn 9-3, #17-26 - HW Lsn 9-4, #27-35 Agenda: - Review HW Lsn 9-3, #17-26 - Review HW Lsn 9-4, #27-35 - Start PhET Diffraction and Resolution Lab Assignment: - PhET Diffraction and Resolution Lab - Reading Activity 9-5 6-Word Memoir: Gaben loves to take my skins |
|
Fri, Mar 18
Due:
- Reading Activity 9-5 Agenda: - Lecture Lsn 9-5 - PhET Diffraction and Resolution Lab Questions Assignment: - PhET Diffraction and Resolution Lab - HW Lsn 9-5, #36-49 - Chapter 9 Test Review 6-Word Memoir: Hardship opens the door for opportunity
|
Independent Study: Review lecture notes and watch videos WITH HEADPHONES on your own. Then work on the homework and test review.
|
SPRING BREAK, MAR 19 - 27
Words of Wisdom: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
|
|
Wed, Mar 30
Due:
- PhET Diffraction and Resolution Lab - HW Lsn 9-5, #36-49 - Chapter 9 Test Review Agenda: - Review HW Lsn 9-5, #36-49 - Review Chapter 9 Test Review Assignment: - Reading Activity 5-1 - Study for Chapter 9 Test 6-Word Memoir: I aim to please and succeed |
|
Fri, Apr 1,
|
|
Words of Wisdom: I spilled spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone.
People In Physics - James Wynne
After receiving his doctorate in applied physics from Harvard in 1969, James Wynne joined IBM Research in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1971, he returned to the United States to join a laser science group at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where he was soon promoted to manager. Together with Rangaswamy "Sri" Srinivasan and Samuel Blum, members of his team, he discovered excimer laser surgery, the foundation of the present day laser refractive eye surgery techniques, known as LASIK (laser in situ keratomileusis) and PRK (photorefractive keratectomy).
"We were a basic science group, not focused on any particular IBM technology or product development, but simply looking for new things those lasers would make possible," says Wynne.
"Frankly, we were afraid of shining it on our own skin, so we talked about shining it on some different types animal tissue, some cooked meat, or maybe something else from the cafeteria," continues Wynne. "What really broke things open, after all the talk of what kind of tissue we would use, was that Sri brought his Thanksgiving turkey leftovers into the lab the day after Thanksgiving in 1981. He used the excimer laser at 193 nm to etch a pattern in whatever bone, cartilage, or meat was on the tissue sample," says Wynne.
"I had this moment of eureka, we have a new form of surgery! By using the ultraviolet light of the excimer laser, we were getting an extremely clean cut, with no evidence of damage to the surrounding tissue," says Wynne. Srinivasan, Braren, and Trokel published a paper on the laser etching of cow cornea in December, 1983 in a major ophthalmology journal. That paper inspired the ophthalmologic community to develop the procedures we know as LASIK and PRK, where the excimer laser is used as a sculpting tool to correct myopia, astigmatism, or hyperopia, by reshaping the front of the cornea. The first successful operation on a sighted human patient occurred in 1987, and since then over 20 million people have had these laser refractive surgical procedures.
James Wynne is the author of numerous articles and scientific journals and the holder of many patents, including several in laser dentistry and laser dermatology, and has received numerous Outstanding Innovation Awards throughout his career at IBM. In 2002, James Wynne, along with Rangaswamy Srinivasan and Samuel Blum were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 2010, they will share the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics with ophthalmologists Steven Trokel and Francis L'Esperance.
From: http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/people/wynne.cfm
"We were a basic science group, not focused on any particular IBM technology or product development, but simply looking for new things those lasers would make possible," says Wynne.
"Frankly, we were afraid of shining it on our own skin, so we talked about shining it on some different types animal tissue, some cooked meat, or maybe something else from the cafeteria," continues Wynne. "What really broke things open, after all the talk of what kind of tissue we would use, was that Sri brought his Thanksgiving turkey leftovers into the lab the day after Thanksgiving in 1981. He used the excimer laser at 193 nm to etch a pattern in whatever bone, cartilage, or meat was on the tissue sample," says Wynne.
"I had this moment of eureka, we have a new form of surgery! By using the ultraviolet light of the excimer laser, we were getting an extremely clean cut, with no evidence of damage to the surrounding tissue," says Wynne. Srinivasan, Braren, and Trokel published a paper on the laser etching of cow cornea in December, 1983 in a major ophthalmology journal. That paper inspired the ophthalmologic community to develop the procedures we know as LASIK and PRK, where the excimer laser is used as a sculpting tool to correct myopia, astigmatism, or hyperopia, by reshaping the front of the cornea. The first successful operation on a sighted human patient occurred in 1987, and since then over 20 million people have had these laser refractive surgical procedures.
James Wynne is the author of numerous articles and scientific journals and the holder of many patents, including several in laser dentistry and laser dermatology, and has received numerous Outstanding Innovation Awards throughout his career at IBM. In 2002, James Wynne, along with Rangaswamy Srinivasan and Samuel Blum were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 2010, they will share the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics with ophthalmologists Steven Trokel and Francis L'Esperance.
From: http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/people/wynne.cfm
Mon, Apr 4
Due:
- Chapter 9 Test Review Agenda: - Chapter 9 Test Assignment: - Reading Activity 5-1 6-Word Memoir: I am nice and sometimes funny |
|
Thu, Apr 7
Due:
- Reading Activity 5-1 Agenda: - Finish Lecture Lsn 5-1 - PhET Electric Fields Lab Assignment: - HW Lsn 5-1, #1-14 - Reading Activity 5-2 6-Word Memoir: I am still figuring everything out |
|
Words of Wisdom: Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
Physics Today - Shock Waves
The drawings show waves produced at regular time intervals by an object moving through a fluid. When the object speed is less than the wave speed (top), the waves run out ahead. When the object speed equals the wave speed (middle), the waves pile up right in front of the object. When the object speed is greater than the wave speed (bottom), the waves form a wake.
Have you ever heard a sonic boom? Have you ever seen the shock waves that cause one? Shockwaves are regions of increased air pressure and temperature, and when these waves reach the ground, we hear the sonic boom.
To understand these shock waves, take a look at the diagram to the left, which show waves spreading out from an object moving through a fluid. Such waves are produced continually as the object moves. Each diagram shows a series snapshots taken at regular time intervals. These waves spread out in circles, like ripples from a stone dropped into a pond, and move at the speed of the waves in the fluid. Notice that if the object moves faster than the speed of the waves, the circles form a “V”-shaped wake, like the wake of a ship or the shock waves from the nose of an F-18.
As the diagram shows, when the object’s speed equals the wave speed, the waves pile up right in front of the object. In the 1940s, engineers feared that as an aircraft approached the speed of sound, this accumulation of waves could produce loss of control, and indeed, early attempts to break the sound barrier failed, with the loss of test aircraft and pilots. Finally, in 1947 Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager smoothly accelerated the Bell X-1 (see photo) to Mach 1.2, or 1.2 times the speed of sound, which at the X-1’s altitude is about 300 meters per second, (660 miles per hour).
Have you ever heard a sonic boom? Have you ever seen the shock waves that cause one? Shockwaves are regions of increased air pressure and temperature, and when these waves reach the ground, we hear the sonic boom.
To understand these shock waves, take a look at the diagram to the left, which show waves spreading out from an object moving through a fluid. Such waves are produced continually as the object moves. Each diagram shows a series snapshots taken at regular time intervals. These waves spread out in circles, like ripples from a stone dropped into a pond, and move at the speed of the waves in the fluid. Notice that if the object moves faster than the speed of the waves, the circles form a “V”-shaped wake, like the wake of a ship or the shock waves from the nose of an F-18.
As the diagram shows, when the object’s speed equals the wave speed, the waves pile up right in front of the object. In the 1940s, engineers feared that as an aircraft approached the speed of sound, this accumulation of waves could produce loss of control, and indeed, early attempts to break the sound barrier failed, with the loss of test aircraft and pilots. Finally, in 1947 Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager smoothly accelerated the Bell X-1 (see photo) to Mach 1.2, or 1.2 times the speed of sound, which at the X-1’s altitude is about 300 meters per second, (660 miles per hour).
|
Tue, Apr 12
Due:
- HW Lsn 5-1, #1-14 - Reading Activity 5-2 Agenda: - Electric Fields Lab Questions - Review HW Lsn 5-1, #1-14 - Lecture Lsn 5-2 Assignment: - HW Lsn 5-2, #15-29 - Reading Activity 5-3 6-Word Memoir: I procrastinate but, it gets done
|
Thur, Apr 14, Floater Fifth
Due:
- None Agenda: - Potential Divider Exercise Assignment: - HW Lsn 5-2, #15-29 - Reading Activity 5-3 6-Word Memoir: I really like to play sports
|
Fri, Apr 15
Due:
- Income Taxes - HW Lsn 5-2, #15-29 - Reading Activity 5-3 Agenda: - Review HW Lsn 5-2, #15-29 - Lecture Lsn 5-3 Assignment: - HW Lsn 5-3, #30-36 - Reading Activity 5-4 6-Word Memoir: I was born as a rebel………. I still am!!
|
Words of Wisdom: Borrow money from pessimists-they don't expect it back.
Atom smasher collides particles at record energies
By Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Senior Writer
Published April 06, 2012
LiveScience
Physicists have started running the world's largest particle accelerator at a new record energy and taking the first data from these ultra-powerful collisions.
Protons zoom around the 17 mile (27 kilometer) underground loop of the Large Hadron Collider below Switzerland and France, and then crash into each other, dissolving into new and sometimes exotic particles. Scientists have now sped up those protons a bit more, sending them speeding toward each other at energies of 4 teraelectron volts (TeV), creating a collision energy of 8 TeV — a new world record.
"The increase in energy is all about maximizing the discovery potential of the LHC," Sergio Bertolucci, director of research at the LHC's home lab CERN, said in a statement. "And in that respect, 2012 looks set to be a vintage year for particle physics."
Ramping up to higher energies means the LHC has a better chance of creating the rare and highly sought particles it was designed to search for. These include the long-theorized, but not-yet-detected Higgs boson particle, as well as the particles predicted by a physics theory called supersymmetry. If supersymmetric particles are discovered, they may offer an explanation for the mystery of dark matter, the invisible stuff thought to make up most of the matter in the universe. [Wacky Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature]
The increased energy should mean more Higgs boson particles are produced, if they exist. Already, scientists at two of the LHC's experiments, Atlas and CMS, have seen promising indications of an excess of particles weighing around 125 GeV (gigaelectron volts) — potentially a sign of the Higgs. Yet physicists say they don't have enough data to confirm a discovery with certainty. Ultimately, scientists plan to run particle beams through the LHC at an astounding 7TeVeach, producing collisions of a whopping 14TeV. To do that, they'll need to refurbish the accelerator during a planned shutdown at the end of this year.
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/06/atom-smasher-collides-particles-at-record-energies/#ixzz1tSfejkeb
Published April 06, 2012
LiveScience
Physicists have started running the world's largest particle accelerator at a new record energy and taking the first data from these ultra-powerful collisions.
Protons zoom around the 17 mile (27 kilometer) underground loop of the Large Hadron Collider below Switzerland and France, and then crash into each other, dissolving into new and sometimes exotic particles. Scientists have now sped up those protons a bit more, sending them speeding toward each other at energies of 4 teraelectron volts (TeV), creating a collision energy of 8 TeV — a new world record.
"The increase in energy is all about maximizing the discovery potential of the LHC," Sergio Bertolucci, director of research at the LHC's home lab CERN, said in a statement. "And in that respect, 2012 looks set to be a vintage year for particle physics."
Ramping up to higher energies means the LHC has a better chance of creating the rare and highly sought particles it was designed to search for. These include the long-theorized, but not-yet-detected Higgs boson particle, as well as the particles predicted by a physics theory called supersymmetry. If supersymmetric particles are discovered, they may offer an explanation for the mystery of dark matter, the invisible stuff thought to make up most of the matter in the universe. [Wacky Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature]
The increased energy should mean more Higgs boson particles are produced, if they exist. Already, scientists at two of the LHC's experiments, Atlas and CMS, have seen promising indications of an excess of particles weighing around 125 GeV (gigaelectron volts) — potentially a sign of the Higgs. Yet physicists say they don't have enough data to confirm a discovery with certainty. Ultimately, scientists plan to run particle beams through the LHC at an astounding 7TeVeach, producing collisions of a whopping 14TeV. To do that, they'll need to refurbish the accelerator during a planned shutdown at the end of this year.
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/06/atom-smasher-collides-particles-at-record-energies/#ixzz1tSfejkeb
Wed, Apr 20
Due:
- HW Lsn 5-3, #30-36 - Reading Activity 5-4 Agenda: - Review HW Lsn 5-3, #30-36 - Lecture Lsn 5-4 Assignment: - HW Lsn 5-4, #37-46 - Chapter 5 Test Review 6-Word Memoir: Slowly realizing I know absolutely nothing |
|
Words of Wisdom: You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
Star cluster thrown out of galaxy at speed of more than 2 million mph
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/04/30/runaway-star-cluster-traveling-at-more-than-two-million-miles-per-hour/
Astronomers say they have discovered a star cluster that has been thrown in the direction of Earth at a speed of more than two million miles per hour. The cluster, named HVGC-1, originated in the M87 galaxy and is expected to endlessly drift through space, rocketing through the voids between other galaxies. "Astronomers have found runaway stars before, but this is the first time we've found a runaway star cluster," said Nelson Caldwell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who is the lead author on a study which is set to be published in the The Astrophysical Journal. HVGC stands for hypervelocity globular cluster. These clusters are groupings of thousands of stars contained inside a ball a few dozen light-years across. The team found HVGC-1 using the MMT Telescope in Arizona after spending years studying the space around M87. A computer then calculated the speed of the cluster. "We didn't expect to find anything moving that fast," said Jay Strader of Michigan State University, who is a co-author of the study. The Milky Way Galaxy holds around 150 globular clusters, while the M87 galaxy holds thousands, according to a news release from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Astronomers believe HVGC-1 could have reached its current speed after passing through two supermassive black holes at the center of M87, which acted like a slingshot, flinging the cluster away.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/04/30/runaway-star-cluster-traveling-at-more-than-two-million-miles-per-hour/
Astronomers say they have discovered a star cluster that has been thrown in the direction of Earth at a speed of more than two million miles per hour. The cluster, named HVGC-1, originated in the M87 galaxy and is expected to endlessly drift through space, rocketing through the voids between other galaxies. "Astronomers have found runaway stars before, but this is the first time we've found a runaway star cluster," said Nelson Caldwell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who is the lead author on a study which is set to be published in the The Astrophysical Journal. HVGC stands for hypervelocity globular cluster. These clusters are groupings of thousands of stars contained inside a ball a few dozen light-years across. The team found HVGC-1 using the MMT Telescope in Arizona after spending years studying the space around M87. A computer then calculated the speed of the cluster. "We didn't expect to find anything moving that fast," said Jay Strader of Michigan State University, who is a co-author of the study. The Milky Way Galaxy holds around 150 globular clusters, while the M87 galaxy holds thousands, according to a news release from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Astronomers believe HVGC-1 could have reached its current speed after passing through two supermassive black holes at the center of M87, which acted like a slingshot, flinging the cluster away.
Mon, Apr 25
Due:
- HW Lsn 5-4, #37-46 - Chapter 5 Test Review Agenda: - Review HW Lsn 5-4, #37-46 - Review Chapter 5 Test Review Assignment: - Study for Chapter 5 Test 6-Word Memoir: Suffered from life, excelled past everything
|
Wed, Apr 27, Floater Fifth
Due:
- None Agenda: - PhET Battery Lab Assignment: - Complete PhET Battery Lab 6-Word Memoir: They said: “It’s impossible”. It wasn’t. (Obvious reference to Battery Lab)
|
Thu, Apr 28
Due:
- Chapter 5 Test Review Agenda: - PhET Battery Lab Questions - Chapter 5 Test Assignment: - Supplemental Reading Activity: Exploring the New IA 6-Word Memoir: The time won't stop flying by
|
Words of Wisdom: My aunt gave me a walkie-talkie for my birthday. She says if I'm good, she'll give me the other one next year.
Teen Engineer Invents System to Improve Air Quality on Airplanes
Seperated at birth, Jack's twin brother makes a name for himself.
Raymond Wang, 17, of Canada was awarded first place for engineering a new air inlet system for airplane cabins to improve air quality and curb disease transmission at this year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a program of Society for Science & the Public.
Wang’s system improves the availability of fresh air in the cabin by more than 190 percent while reducing pathogen inhalation concentrations by up to 55 times compared to conventional designs, and can be easily and economically incorporated in existing airplanes. Wang received the Gordon E. Moore Award of US$75,000, named in honor of the Intel co-founder and fellow scientist. Nicole Ticea, 16, of Canada received one of two Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards of US$50,000 for developing an inexpensive, easy-to-use testing device to combat the high rate of undiagnosed HIV infection in low-income communities. Her disposable, electricity-free device provides results in an hour and should cost less than US$5 to produce. Ticea has already founded her own company, which recently received a US$100,000 grant to continue developing her technology. |
Karan Jerath, 18, of Friendswood, Texas, received the other Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award of US$50,000 for refining and testing a novel device that should allow an undersea oil well to rapidly and safely recover following a blowout. Jerath developed a better containment enclosure that separates the natural gas, oil and ocean water; accommodates different water depths, pipe sizes and fluid compositions; and can prevent the formation of potentially clogging methane hydrate.
https://www.societyforscience.org/content/ssp-blog/grand-award-winners-announced-intel-isef-2015 |
Tues, May 3
Due:
- PhET Battery Lab - Supplemental Reading Activity: Exploring the New IA Agenda: - Practice IA Grading Exercise Assignment: - IA Topic Approval Worksheet 6-Word Memoir: A world of fun and adventure
|
|
Fri, May 6
Due:
- IA Topic Approval Worksheet Agenda: - PhET Resistance in Series and Parallel Circuits Assignment: - IA Annotated Bibliography - Read Snap Circuits Chap 1 - Snap Circuits Chap 1 Quiz 6-Word Memoir: Active childhood, not as much now |
|
Don't forget Mother's Day - May 8th!!!
Words of Wisdom: If you write the word "monkey" a million times, do you start to think you're Shakespeare?
Famous Dead Guys In Physics - Thomas Young (1773-1829)
Thomas Young was an English physician and physicist, with a brilliant mind and eclectic interests. By the age of fourteen it is said that he was acquainted with Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic and Persian. So great was his knowledge that he was called called Phenomena Young by his fellow students at Cambridge. He studied medicine in London, Edinburgh, and Göttingen and set up medical practice in London. His initial interest was in sense perception, and he was the first to realize that the eye focusses by changing the shape of the lens. He discovered the cause of astigmatism, and was the initiator, with Helmoltz, of the three colour theory of perception, believing that the eye constructed its sense of colour using only three receptors, for red, green and blue. In 1801 he was appointed Professor of Physics at Cambridge university. His famous double-slit experiment established that light was a wave motion, although this conclusion was strongly opposed by contemporary scientists who believed that Newton, who had proposed that light was corpuscular in nature, could not possibly be wrong. However Young's work was soon confirmed by the French scientists Fresnel and Arago. He proposed that light was a transverse wave motion (as opposed to longitudinal) whose wavelenght determined the colour. Since it was thought that all wave motions had to be supported in a material medium, light waves were presumed to travel through a so-called aether, which was supposed to fill the entire universe. He became very interested in Egyptology, and his studies of the Rosetta stone, discovered on one of Napoleon's expeditions in 1814, contributed greatly to the subsequent deciphering of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. He did work in surface tension, elasticity (Young's modulus, a measure of the rigidity of materials, is named after him), and gave one of the earliest scientific definitions of energy.
Tue, May 10
|
|
Wed, May 11
Due:
- None Agenda: - Snap Circuits Chap 1 Lab Assignment: - IA Outline - Read Snap Circuits Chap 3 - Snap Circuits Chap 3 Quiz 6-Word Memoir: An awfully long and twisted roller-coaster |
Words of Wisdom: Smoking cures weight problems...eventually
Physics In The News - Solar Spots and Rings
|
|
Mon, May 16
Due:
- IA Annotated Bibliography - Snap Circuits Chap 3 Quiz - Snap Circuits Chap 1 Lab Agenda: - Snap Circuits Chap 3 Lab Assignment: - IA Outline - Read Snap Circuits Chap 2 - Snap Circuits Chap 2 Quiz 6-Word Memoir: Antisocial nerd with pretty good grades |
Thu, May 19
Due:
- IA Outline Agenda: - Snap Circuits Chap 3 Lab Assignment: - IA Research Question, Background, Materials List, Process/Procedures - Read Snap Circuits Chap 2 - Snap Circuits Chap 2 Quiz 6-Word Memoir: Anything is more fun than homework |
|
Words of Wisdom: Yesterday I told a chicken to cross the road. It said, "what for?"
|
How to interview for your dream schoolAn article published in the Huffington Post by a man that is an alumnus of Harvard and does applicant interviews for them. An interesting perspective on what he looks for in an applicant, and what very well may be what other admissions personnel are looking for . . . what sets you apart as "a comet blazing across the night sky."
|
Word of the Day - Ineptocracy
A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Mon, May 23
|
Tue, May 24
Due:
- None Agenda: - Optional Chapter 9 Re-Test - Snap Circuits Chap 2 Lab Assignment: - IA Research Question, Background, Materials List, Process/Procedures 6-Word Memoir: Back again for two more years |
Fri, May 27
Due:
- IA Research Question, Background, Materials List, Process/Procedures - Snap Circuits Chap 2 Lab Agenda: - Lab Make-Up Assignment: - Internal Assessment Rough Draft, Due Aug 8th 6-Word Memoir: Be right back, League of Legends |
Words of Wisdom: The sky is falling . . . no, I'm tipping over backwards.
MEMORIAL DAY - MAY 30TH
|
|
Disregard the information below (unless you want to get laughed at).
It contains information from last year that may be outdated!
Fri, May 8
Wed, May 13
Fri, May 15
|
|
|
People in Physics - Jorge Pullin
Jorge Pullin has made a career of studying a weighty subject: gravity. A professor at Louisiana State University, Pullin uses general relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity, to predict what will happen when black holes collide. Pullin became interested in gravity as a graduate student in Argentina. At a gravitational physics meeting there, he met Gabriela González, another Argentine physicist. A few years later, they were married. “I guess we are a living example that Einstein was wrong when he said that gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love,” Pullin said.
Pullin grew up in Buenos Aires. His family came from England and Scotland in the early 1900s, and he was involved in the large Scottish community of Buenos Aires. “I was, as a kid, always interested in technical stuff, playing with electricity, radios, cars,” he said. He went to college at the University of Buenos Aires. He intended to keep up his interest in technical matters by studying engineering, but after his first year, realized he was more interested in physics. “I enjoy the freedom to investigate what I want, and to basically understand things,” he said. After his second year of college, he moved to the Instituto Balsiero, a physics research institute in Bariloche, a city high in the Andes Mountains. He moved to Cordoba for a Ph.D., where he began to study gravity and met his wife. In 1989, he moved to the United States as a postdoctoral researcher. In 1993, Penn State started a center for the study of gravity, and hired Pullin as a faculty member. This July, he became chair of theoretical physics at LSU.
Pullin is involved with two research projects at LSU. First, he works with other scientists in an attempt to rewrite Einstein's laws of general relativity to include another influential theory of 20th century physics, quantum mechanics. Second, he uses Einstein's laws to make predictions useful to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) project, an experiment designed to detect “gravitational waves,” ripples in the fabric of space that general relativity says should form when black holes collide. LIGO uses two giant machines called interferometers, one in Washington State and one in Louisiana, which should vibrate slightly as gravitational waves pass. “The detection of these waves is an enormous experimental challenge,” Pullin said - general relativity predicts that the interferometer's mirrors will move less than the radius of a proton. “[LIGO scientists] would be quite happy if we theorists could come and tell them what sort of wave patterns they're supposed to see. That would make their lives easier when they tried to detect them.” He designs computer simulations that tell him what gravity waves will be produced when black holes of different masses and separations collide from different angles.To conduct his research, Pullin has moved from one continent to another, and he studies events taking place in other galaxies.
An interferometer consists of two long arms. Scientists shine light from the arms' junction to mirrors at their ends, which reflect light back to the junction. When they reach the junction, the light beams interact with one another, forming a distinctive “interference pattern.” The arms in each LIGO interferometer are 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) long. When a gravitational wave passes through one arm of the interferometer, it makes the space that the arm occupies vibrate slightly. The vibration distorts the interference pattern at the junction. If scientists see the same interference pattern at both LIGO machines, they will have strong evidence that a gravitational wave passed through.
From: http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/people/pullin.cfm
Pullin grew up in Buenos Aires. His family came from England and Scotland in the early 1900s, and he was involved in the large Scottish community of Buenos Aires. “I was, as a kid, always interested in technical stuff, playing with electricity, radios, cars,” he said. He went to college at the University of Buenos Aires. He intended to keep up his interest in technical matters by studying engineering, but after his first year, realized he was more interested in physics. “I enjoy the freedom to investigate what I want, and to basically understand things,” he said. After his second year of college, he moved to the Instituto Balsiero, a physics research institute in Bariloche, a city high in the Andes Mountains. He moved to Cordoba for a Ph.D., where he began to study gravity and met his wife. In 1989, he moved to the United States as a postdoctoral researcher. In 1993, Penn State started a center for the study of gravity, and hired Pullin as a faculty member. This July, he became chair of theoretical physics at LSU.
Pullin is involved with two research projects at LSU. First, he works with other scientists in an attempt to rewrite Einstein's laws of general relativity to include another influential theory of 20th century physics, quantum mechanics. Second, he uses Einstein's laws to make predictions useful to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) project, an experiment designed to detect “gravitational waves,” ripples in the fabric of space that general relativity says should form when black holes collide. LIGO uses two giant machines called interferometers, one in Washington State and one in Louisiana, which should vibrate slightly as gravitational waves pass. “The detection of these waves is an enormous experimental challenge,” Pullin said - general relativity predicts that the interferometer's mirrors will move less than the radius of a proton. “[LIGO scientists] would be quite happy if we theorists could come and tell them what sort of wave patterns they're supposed to see. That would make their lives easier when they tried to detect them.” He designs computer simulations that tell him what gravity waves will be produced when black holes of different masses and separations collide from different angles.To conduct his research, Pullin has moved from one continent to another, and he studies events taking place in other galaxies.
An interferometer consists of two long arms. Scientists shine light from the arms' junction to mirrors at their ends, which reflect light back to the junction. When they reach the junction, the light beams interact with one another, forming a distinctive “interference pattern.” The arms in each LIGO interferometer are 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) long. When a gravitational wave passes through one arm of the interferometer, it makes the space that the arm occupies vibrate slightly. The vibration distorts the interference pattern at the junction. If scientists see the same interference pattern at both LIGO machines, they will have strong evidence that a gravitational wave passed through.
From: http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/people/pullin.cfm
Thu, May 28
|
Fri, May 29
|
Mon, Jun 1
|
Tue, Jun 2
|
IB Physics 1 HL students may take the exam during any period, but the SL exam will only be given on Tuesday afternoon following the 7th period exam and after the lunch break.