four things everyone should know about quantum physics

We’ve just started to look at the parts of unit 1 we left behind in November.  The first of these is Quantum Physics.  It’s a strange topic and you might want to stick your head in the sand of classical physics and seek refuge in waves.  Luckily, Prof. Chad Orzel has come to our rescue with a blog post called Four things everyone should know about Quantum Physics.

Prof. Orzel is also the (co)author of a book called How to teach Physics to your dog.  I’ve not bought it yet but the free download of chapter one (use the link below) mentions some of the ideas we have looked at already and mentions some names that should be familiar by now: Einstein, Planck, de Broglie (is that picture of de Broglie wrong, looks like a young Einstein to me?) and Millikan.

Have a read of the introductory chapter and share it with you dog. The interview is good too.

Millikan’s oil drop experiment

On Monday, we discussed Millikan’s famous experiment to determine the charge on an electron.  Some of the slides I used during the lesson were taken from a site created by Joe Rowing, who teaches physics in Brighton. You can download the full powerpoint file and handout sheets here.

millikan_balloon

We performed a small experiment to show how Millikan was able to calculate the charge due to a single electron.  Balloons filled with different numbers of beads replaced the charged oil drops and allowed us to simulate Millikan’s method using an electronic balance.  The mass of a single bead at 0.22g – congratulations to those of you who were able to reach this value!

If you look at the slides on the site I linked to above, you will find a description of the experiment I based this on.  Mr Rowing used sweets instead of beads.

black hole talk

The Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Prof. John Brown, will be in Thurso on Tuesday 10th November. He’s giving a talk on black holes at the Pentland Hotel as the guest of the local Institute of Mechanical Engineers.  We’ve just started to look at this topic in class and I hope some of you will be able to come along.  See the attached poster for more details.

AH LO3 diagrams

Here are the diagrams you will need for your LO3 report.  Cick on each link and then save the large image that opens up.  You can rezise them once they have been imported into your report.

turntable

stand

radian sector

turntable and stand

download your copy of the SQA data booklet

The blue SQA data booklet we use in class is also available online as a pdf file.  It’s a good idea to get familiar with the page(s) for your course as you get to use a copy of the booklet for unit assessments, NABs, prelims and the external exam in May.

Download your own copy of the booklet for use at home by clicking on the link below.

Found in a cupboard

I think this might be a saccharimeter.  I checked both eyepieces using a piece of polaroid and each of them contains a polarising element.  The label on the base says “Griffin & George”. There is an extra label below this, that states “No.7709”.

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