with mr mackenzie
There’s a nice guide to particle physics on The Particle Adventure web site. The site has it’s own free apps for android & apple devices that are worth installing.
Here’s Prof Cox with a two part summary of particle physics.
and a short video with just the quarks
The video below was made before the Higgs boson was confirmed, so please bear that in mind. It’s still a nice video though.
Learn about the world’s largest neutrino detector in Antarctica.
The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) is radiation left over from the big bang. When the universe was very young, just as space became transparent to light, electromagnetic energy would have propagated through space at a much shorter wavelength. Nowadays, the temperature of space has fallen to approximately 2.7 K (that’s 2.7 K above absolute zero!) and, using Wien’s Law, we can confirm that the peak wavelength of the electromagnetic radiation is so long that the background radiation lies in the microwave portion of the em spectrum.
The CMB was first detected in 1964 by Richard Woodrow Wilson and Arno Allan Penzias, who worked at Bell Laboratories in the USA.
Astronomers often refer to the colour of a star, which seems a bit odd because we mostly see stars as white twinkly objects. However, even with the naked eye, we can look closely at certain stars and detect a hint of colour – just look at this image of the Orion constellation. As we view him, the left shoulder has a red coloured star, while the right shoulder and right foot appear to be blue.
Now click on the image to see the same view at much higher resolution. In the hi-res photo, look at the stars in the background. They’re not all white!
What can the colour of a star tell us?
We’re going over your drafts of the Outcome 1 report tomorrow.
For those who have mistakes in the raw data, a pdf version is attached below.
Here are my worked answers to HW4 on forces. Please speak to me if you still have questions and working through the attached file.
Note that other methods are possible for Q5a(ii), e.g. sine & cosine rules, or a scale drawing.
You might have noticed that the server has struggled to cope with so many people trying to view the resources as the Physics exams approach.
If you can’t get in, you can still access some of the video files and PDF notes through iTunes.
There are iTunes podcasts set up for Advanced Higher, Higher and National 5 Physics. Those of you sitting National 5 might also find useful resources in the old Standard Grade and Intermediate 2 podcasts.
Higher podcast – includes some past papers
National 5 podcast – includes specimen question paper and the 2014 exam, plus marking instructions
Subscribe to the appropriate podcast and download the pdf/mp3/mp4 files. I’ve run some tests and this seems to work even when though the site won’t let you in.
Here are the solutions to the 2011 Higher Physics exam.
Here are the marking instructions for the 2010 Higher paper.
Here is the 2010 exam paper for Higher Physics.
2011 Higher physics paper is attached.
