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Things to consider B4 visiting with me...
Be prepared for/to: - Address all significant feedback from me and/or your collegagues
- An in-depth description of:
- What you liked most
about the course
- What you like least, and
- What would make this course better next semester
- Show me
your lab book
- Provide me a semester time sheet:
- Hours spent in class
- Hours spent out of class
- Dates for:
- Absences
- Tardies
- Earlies (where you left before I let you go)
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Published
Dec 11, 2004 04:47 PM
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Interview Schedule
Go here for the interview schedule.
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Published
Dec 9, 2004 12:17 PM
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12/9 Class
We started with a presentation of a trip to Alpha Centauri (cool trip), followed by a viewing of
the 3rd hour of The Elegant Universe, followed by a selection of interview times (see the schedule in
the (Useful (?!) Documents area), followed by a couple of post-tests.
What a semester, huh?
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Published
Dec 9, 2004 11:28 AM
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Elegant Universe - HOUR 3: Welcome to the 11th Dimension
The Wild West of Physics String theory is radically changing our ideas about the nature of space, opening
up the possibility that extra dimensions, rips in the fabric of space, and parallel universes actually exist. The Potential
of Strings Strings provide a unified framework for viewing the universe, but for a while, confusingly, there were five different versions
of string theory. Getting to One Theory What physicists thought were five different theories turned out to
be five different ways of looking at the same thing. String theory was unified at last. Parallel
Universes The extra dimension of space required to unify string theory suggests that we may be trapped
on just one tiny slice of a higher-dimensional universe. Escaping Gravity The weakness of gravity compared to
the other forces has confounded physicists for decades, but now string theorists believe that gravity may be leaking
into parallel universes. Riddle of the Big Bang The origin of the universe has always been a
mysterious event in which the laws of physics appear to break down. Could it be that the
big bang was caused by the collision of two parallel universes? Signs of Strings The hunt is on
for evidence that supports string theory-for example, extra dimensions or supersymmetry. Too Elegant to be Wrong? Will string theory
turn out to be a dead end? Most string theorists believe that such an elegant and mathematically beautiful
idea couldn't be completely wrong.
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Published
Dec 9, 2004 11:18 AM
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Balloon Launcher?
A colleague needs to borrow a water balloon launcher by noon tomorrow (12/7). Do any of you
have one? Here's Mark's message:
Dear Mr. Weaver;
My name is Mark Peterson. I am a doctoral student in Exercise and Wellness. We spoke earlier
today about the water balloon slingshot. If possible, I would like to borrow one for the ASU Destress
Fest tomorrow afternoon. Please let me know as soon as possible if there is one available. I'm
so sorry about the extremely late notice, but I assumed that I'd be able to pick one up
in a toy store. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Mark Peterson
mdpeterz@hotmail.com
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Published
Dec 6, 2004 01:07 PM
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Class 11/30
We watched the first two hours of the Elegant Universe (PBS Nova program). The blog entries below
are taken from the PBS website. Pretty cool stuff!
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Published
Nov 30, 2004 12:20 PM
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Elegant Universe - HOUR 2: String's the Thing
Two Conflicting Sets of Laws In order to solve some of the deepest mysteries of the universe, the
rules that govern large objects like galaxies must be combined with the rules that govern small objects
like subatomic particles. One Master Equation Many physicists now believe that strings-miniscule vibrating strands of energy thought
to make up all matter-hold the key to uniting the world of the large and the world
of the small in a single theory. The Birth of String Theory In the 1960s, physicists caught a
glimpse of what appeared to be strange, string-like objects hidden beneath the abstract symbols of a 200-year-old equation.
The Standard Model Meanwhile, mainstream science was embracing particles as points, not strings, and the Standard Model was born, uniting the
strong force, the weak force, and electromagnetism. Wrestling with String Theory By the 1970s, a few young physicists worked on
taming the unruly equations of string theory and succeeded in describing how gravity works in the subatomic
world, a key element missing from the Standard Model. The Theory of Everything A revised version of string
theory, free of mathematical inconsistencies, seemed capable of describing all the building blocks of nature, and it launched a hot
new field of physics. Multiple Dimensions Despite our perception that we live in a universe with four
dimensions-three spatial and one temporal-string theory demands that our universe has 11 dimensions. Five Flavors of String
Theory By the mid-1980s physicists had developed five different versions of string theory, raising the question of whether it
would prove to be a theory of everything or a theory of nothing.
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Published
Nov 30, 2004 12:12 PM
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Elegant Universe - HOUR 1: Einstein's Dream
A Theory of Everything? Today, Einstein's goal of combining the physical laws of the universe in one theory that
explains it all is the Holy Grail of modern physics. Newton's Embarrassing Secret Although Newton discovered the
law of gravity nearly 300 years ago, until Einstein came along, scientists had no idea how gravity actually worked.
A New Picture of Gravity Einstein's success in explaining gravity as warps and curves in the fabric
of space and time set him on a quest to unify gravity with electricity and magnetism. A
Strange New World As Einstein struggled to unite the weak force of gravity with the much stronger
force of electromagnetism, physics moved on, examining the bizarre way tiny bits of matter interact with one another inside
the atom. The Quantum Café According to quantum mechanics, at the tiny scale of atoms and particles, the world
is a game of chance. Gravity-The Odd Man Out For decades, no one could figure out how gravity
operates when you get down to the quantum world of atoms and subatomic particles. Strings to the
Rescue Now string theory-the idea that everything is made of tiny, vibrating strands of energy-holds out the hope
of unifying the world of the very large and the world of the very small. Science or
Philosophy? String theorists have a problem: strings, if they exist, are so small that there's little hope of ever seeing one, so
how can the theory be tested?
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Published
Nov 30, 2004 12:11 PM
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Microgenerators?
NASA Tech Briefs wrote:
* Mini Generator Could Run Electronics * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
MICROGENERATOR Developed at Georgia Tech, a new microgenerator can now produce enough power to run a small electronic
device (e.g., a cell phone) and may soon be able to power a laptop.
The microgenerator produces electricity by spinning a small magnet above a mesh of coils fabricated on a
chip. The device's magnet spins at 100,000 revolutions per minute (rpm); an average car engine operates at 3,000
rpm. Speed like that is capable of producing 1.1 watts of power.
When the 10-mm wide microgenerator is coupled with a similarly sized gas-fueled microturbine (or jet) engine, to form a
microengine, it has the potential to deliver more energy and last 10 times longer than a conventional battery.
Read the complete story at: http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20041130A2
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Published
Nov 30, 2004 08:45 AM
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Quiz?
I decided that selecting questions from each of the major topic areas that were fair and balanced
would be difficult. So, here's how it will work... for you to get "credit" for the quiz, you need to
make sure you have a blog posting of your adventure with relativity (special and general) and other modern
physics topics that is at least 3 paragraphs long by 9:30am on Tuesday. You will then need
to show me your notes (in your lab notebook) that you took while going through all of the
stuff (remember that they were supposed to be "copious").
Sound like a plan?
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Published
Nov 22, 2004 09:51 PM
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Board Shots
This is what was on the board today...
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Published
Nov 18, 2004 01:07 PM
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