Physics II Honors
Chapters 5 & 6
Steven Hawking and Chapter 26 Serway/Faughn

Other Chapters

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Updated 1.2.2011

Monday, December 21

  • Read chapter 5
  • Simultaneity
  • Hoyle and the steady state cosmologists at Cambridge vs. the big bang cosmologists at Oxford
  • Gamov
  • Prediction of cosmic background radiation
  • Penzias and Wilson's accidental discovery

Tuesday, December 22

  • COBE and WMAP
  • Penrose and black holes
  • What did Hawking do anyway? Theory that big bang and black holes are analogues. Also... Hawking Radiation
  • Speed of light discoveries

Wednesday, December 23

  • Intro to relativity:
    • If a car is traveling at 0.5c and it turns its lights on how fast do the lights move forward?
    • Other paradoxes of relative motion...

Thursday, December 23 through Sunday, January 2 – No school – Winter break

  • Einstein's special relativity vs. Galilean relativity
  • Simultaneity, time dilation, and the twin paradox

Monday, December 3

  • More on the Twin Paradox
  • Length contraction

Wednesday, December 3

  • P. 869; 3-6, 10 due (Problems in the textbook - not the conceptual questions)
  • Hand in homework
  • Velocity addition

Thursday, December 4

  • Rest energy and total energy calculations
  • Work on problems

Monday, December 8

  • P. 871; 21-24, 28-29 due (Textbook)
  • Hand in homework
  • Comparing classical, special and general relativity
  • Consequenses of general relativity

Tuesday, December 9

  • Chapter 6 discussion
  • Ancient Greek elements and other simple particle theories
  • Transmutation by alchemists, etc.
  • Mendeleev's observation of periodicity; recommended that uranium be studied more due to the rays that came off it based on Becquerel's accidental discovery by putting pitchblende on a photographic plate in a drawer for storage.
  • Curies' experiments to measure uranium's power - used radioactive elements to ionize air that would conduct electricity. They got uranium from pitchblende and thought that the ore wouldn't be as radioactive but it was more radioactive. They then isolated polonium and radium and confirmed their unique Fraunhofer lines. Warm blue light and heat from radium was sought as a therapeutic tool - bad idea... Energy from matter? How is this done... connection to E=mc2.

Wednesday, December 10

  • Chapters 5, 6 & 26 quiz