Yet another reason we need you all to understand (and help us better understand) electromagnetism!

Nasa warns solar flares from ‘huge space storm’ will cause devastation – Telegraph: “Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes ‘from a deep slumber’ sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.”

Our culture is becoming so dependent on electromagnetism, so get to work helping us to figure this stuff out…

Huge news…

Scientists supersize quantum mechanics : Nature News: “A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

Andrew Cleland at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his team cooled a tiny metal paddle until it reached its quantum mechanical ‘ground state’ — the lowest-energy state permitted by quantum mechanics.”

I’ll explain tomorrow.

Then we’ll discuss.

After that you’ll grow up, become physicists and figure out how to do this on even larger scales so humans can transfer energy and information faster than the speed of light.

Woah.

Your 2 Minute Presentation is Due Next Thursday March 25, 2010

- 2 Web Sources
*No copy / pasting!
*Wikipedia is a Reference Source (for Section III)

- 2 “Real” Book Sources
*No copy / pasting!
*Use our Library EXTENSIVELY.

- 2 Reference Sources
*Wikipedia, etc (No copy / pasting!).
*“Real” book or online sources

- 2 Minute Presentation to Class
*Slides, songs, video
*Be creative!

Enjoy!

Tomorrow we’ll be wrapping up on our brief tour of the history of electromagnetism. Please make sure to review your notes in case I have a *SURPRISE* for you in class.

In the meantime, go watch this lecture:

Fantastic.

History of Electromagnetism Part 2 from Sam Harrelson on Vimeo.

Keep reviewing your notes!

This week we are starting our quarter-long exploration of electromagnetism.

I love this subject and you will too by the time we’re finished in May.

So, get a head start tonight and start reading James Clerk Maxwell’s Preface to his incredibly influential “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” (it was one of Einstein’s favorite books as well)…

Antimatter Supernova -The Biggest Bomb in the Cosmos: “We’ve recently seen the largest explosion ever recorded: a supergiant star two hundred times bigger than the sun utterly obliterated by runaway thermonuclear reactions triggered by gamma ray-driven antimatter production.  The resulting blast was visible for months because it unleashed a  cloud of radioactive material over fifty times the size of our own star, giving off a nuclear fission glow visible from galaxies away.”

Antimatter Supernova is a great name.

Head over to read the whole article… completely fascinating.

Go find out why here.

Science rocks.

Iceberg breaks in Antarctica not where expected: “With the dramatic crash of an iceberg against a glacier that dislodged a massive new chunk of ice, the mysterious continent of Antarctica once again did the unexpected.”

A big chunk of extra credit if you can figure out what happened and why it might matter (both for our studies of waves as well as the future of our planet’s climate). You’ll have to reflect back on our studies of elements, forces, pressure and waves.

And no… there is no “right” or “wrong” answer and you certainly can’t contain your hypothesis in one sentence, word or even paragraph

Today, we continued our studies of waves and highlighted some of the connections we’ll have in the future with our study of the electromagnetic spectrum.

In the meantime, here are our main points from today…

The Four Properties of a Wave

Frequency = Hz
Amplitude = amount of energy/displacement in a wave
Wavelength = ?
Speed = ? x Hz

Your homework for tonight is to study those four properties.

Here’s a good site to find out more info on frequency, amplitude, wavelength and speed.

Tomorrow, we explore how waves interact!