Back At The Salt Mine

Returning from a long weekend is always difficult, but today went quite smoothly for all involved. Next week will be our first full week and I’m sure that it will tax everyone, but let’s enjoy the 4-day week ahead of us without unnecessary apprehension.

Physical Science is moving through the basics of doing science. B Block went into detail on the process of dimensional analysis, which we will use continually through the year, and E Block spent time discussing Thursday’s lab and reviewing the scientific method. This week will find both periods finishing up this unit and I am looking towards next Monday as the day for the assessment. I’ll firm that up in a few days when I am sure of our progress this week.

Honors Physics blasted through Chapter 1 like no other class in previous years and I don’t feel the need to throw a separate assessment at you guys for that bit of information. We started Chapter 2 (one-dimensional motion) today and there will be a few questions from Chapter 1 on the exam for this unit. One-dimensional motion will find us focusing on the basic definitions associated with motion and the descriptors of motion – distance, displacement, velocity, speed and acceleration. This chapter does not cover dynamics, or the study of the causes of motion/changes in motion. That will come later on, so don’t worry about having to add force and momentum to the picture at the moment. We will cover several formulas in this chapter that can be used both for horizontal or vertical motion. It will be very important to use a consistent coordinate system when doing your calculations and the basic one I put on the board today is the one most commonly used. For velocity, displacement and acceleration, the sign designates direction and this is very important when working with motion. For speed and distance, sign is not present, as they can only be positive. We will spend some time differentiating vector quantities (displacement, velocity, acceleration) from scalar quantities (speed, distance) a bit later.

Physics continued on with their examination of the tools and techniques for doing science. We reviewed dimensional analysis and introduced the idea of significant figures. It usually takes people awhile to get into the habit of using significant figures when working problems or reporting results, but make the effort early on so it becomes habit quickly. Part of the discussion today lent itself towards using common sense when doing physics. Common sense and logic will be powerful tools for evaluating answers to problems and making predictions. As physics describes what actually happens in our world, it should be assumed that you have sufficient prior knowledge and experience to have an idea about things before you actually work a problem or do a lab. If your answer/data does not match your predictions; that is a sign that something may have gone wrong. Time to go back and look over things for potential error.

Homework

Honors Physics: Read 2.1 and answer section review questions
Physical Science B: Read 1.3 and answer #1-4 of the section review questions
Physical Science E: Complete the 1.2 section review and the practice problems on page 17
Physics F and G: Read 1.3 and complete #1, 2, 4, 5 of the section review