Links for Summer Class

Check out Powers of Ten.

Check out ActivPhysics.

Update on ITER (Thermonuclear fusion reactor)

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is under construction in France. Here is an article updating how a reorganization of its leadership is refocusing its efforts to determine if the ultimate fantasy in energy production - harnessing the energy process of the Sun for human use - is technologically possible in a reactor. This was supposed to have been built in the U.S. originally, but funding was cut under the Bush administration. I personally am hoping there is a big U.S. scientific presence with this international collaboration, because of its importance in the long-term of our energy hungry civilization. This one is worth keeping an eye on the next few years...

Girls with Toys at UIUC Engineering

The Girls With Toys movement is alive and well at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Check out their site here. This has been a wonderful attempt to get more women involved in STEM, with an emphasis on the 'E' for engineering. Keep in mind that UIUC Engineering has 15 top 5 programs, and this is a launching pad for engineering students into top positions and careers. I am always happy to plug my alma mater.   :-)

Neil Tyson on a Deep Thought About Our Intelligence

I found this particular set of thoughts from Neil deGrasse Tyson really interesting and thought provoking. Think about this notion of if humans are only 1-2% different genetically different from chimps, and what this means in terms of how much more advanced we are from them, then what if there is some organism out there that is some very small percentage different from humans, in the direction of increased intelligence...then we humans would be their chimps! They would be SO far ahead of us, it is difficult to comprehend how much more advanced those beings would be. I have never thought about this, but what a truly intriguing thought!

Read about Emmy Noether, a Great Mathematician and Forgotten Hero of Relativity - largely because she was a Woman

A wonderful summary of how Emmy Noether helped other great mathematicians get a handle on Einstein's General Relativity back in the first quarter of the 20th century can be found here.  Many of her contemporaries, including Einstein, suggested she is the most important woman in the history of mathematics. What is now known as Noether's theorem is at the heart of all physical theories, which states if there is a conservation law, then there must be a quantity that is invariant, and vice versa. For GR, she basically showed energy is still conserved, but it is much more challenging to see it, compared to classical systems and theories, because of the warping of spacetime by mass-energy densities.

Putting the 'A' in STEM to get STEAM

Former Chem-Phys student Sarah Posner is in the U. of Michigan's Stamps School of Art and Design, and has some wonderful work posted on her Tumblr site. Check out many of the pieces that have a science and symmetry influence. The notion of design, especially in engineering, is a big deal, as well as some of the naturally beautiful patterns and objects scientists study - this is the push behind changing STEM to STEAM. Regardless of what to call it, just enjoy some wonderful art from a talented young lady!

Check Out Neil deGrasse Tyson on Bill Maher's Show

I had the pleasure to be at teh dinner at President Schapiro's house at Northwestern last wek, which was in honor of the evening's lecturer, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. It was a wonderful time, of course, and Dr. Tyson gave a wonderful 2.5 hour popular talk about science, the media and how it reports science, modern issues in the U.S. and the world, and so on. Here is the link to the Maher interview.

Magnetism Check List

As the AP exam nears, here is a magnetism check list. Check it out - what do you need to review? Am I forgetting anything? There is also an EM Induction check list.

EM Magnetism Check List

-         Where does magnetism come from?

-         What are magnetic monopoles?

-         Do you know which way magnetic fields ‘flow?’

-         Can you draw magnetic field lines for different arrangements of magnets?

-         Can you use RHR and LHR to determine which way charged particles will get pushed?

-         Can you use F = qv x B and F = Il x B?

-         Why do charged particles go into circular paths when in magnetic fields?

-         Are you comfortable with mv²/R = qvBsinθ?

-         What is a mass spectrometer?

-         What is a velocity selector?

-         How do you calculate the mass of particles in mass spectrometers?

-         When do particles move in spiral/helical paths in B-fields?

-         What are magnetic domains?

-         Why do magnets generally get weaker with heat? When striking or dropping the magnet?

-         Can you define Ampere’s law?

-         Can you use Ampere’s law for long wires? Long solenoids? Toroids?

-         What is current density?

-         Can you find B-fields inside wires with a uniform current density?

-         Can you find B-fields inside wires with a non-uniform density?

-         When and how do you use the curly RHR? Remember this is for the relationship between currents and B-fields those currents create – one is linear, the other circulates

-         How do you conceptually prove currents running through parallel wires in the same direction attract, and in opposite directions repel?

-         How do you find the strength of the magnetic force between wires with currents?

-         Can you define the Biot-Savart law?

-         How do you use B-S for wires with ends and for loops of currents?

-         How do you use B-S for moving charged particles?

-         What is Gauss’s law for a magnet (i.e. the total flux through a closed surface)?

-         What are superconducting magnets?

-         How do we make permanent magnets?

-         What creates the earth’s B-field?

-         How are auroras created at the poles?

-         From chemistry, what are ferro-, para- and diamagnetic materials?

Check out Richard Feynman talking about various subjects!

Had it not been for Einstein, Richard Feynman, in my mind, is likely the genius of the 20th century. Check out a series of videos of him casually discussing different phenomena, all from a conceptual, physical point of view. It is really interesting how he thought about things. Of course, he was then a magician with math, and could take his physical pictures and models and represent them with the math!

Classes on April 13, 2015

For periods 1-2 and 8-9:

Check out the quiz from before break, and talk through anything you may have missed with others in class. Then, check out and take notes on a video on something called the parallel axis theorem. This is a neat 'trick' for finding moments of inertia of objects, where the axis of rotation is NOT the center of mass, without having to do an integral - the only thing you need to know is the 'normal' moment of inertia for an object, where the axis of rotation is the center of mass. This can be useful for trickier problems and situations.

Next, check out an introductory video for simple harmonic motion. Take good notes, since the homework set will be based on the results.


For Periods 3-4:

Check out the quiz from before break, and talk through anything you may have missed with others in class. Then, check out a video (and take notes) of finding the flux via an integral. Next, check out an introductory video for our last type of circuit, where an inductor and capacitor are combined into a LC circuit. The homework set has to do with these two videos, so, again, take good notes. We will pick up on all this Tuesday.