Phriday!

Honors Physics went over their exams and then jumped headlong into simple harmonic motion. We defined simple harmonic motion and used pendulum and mass-spring systems as examples to describe the motion and the changes in force, acceleration, velocity, potential energy and kinetic energy that were demonstrated. On Monday, you will conduct a lab investigation that will target the mathematical model of simple harmonic motion by tracking the motion of an oscillating mass-spring system. Variables such as displacement and mass will be varied to investigate how they affect the system’s motion.

Physical Science B investigated properties of sound in today’s lab activity. The speed of sound in air was ascertained by measuring the time for a reflected sound wave to return to the microphone. The lab was specific about asking you to note the temperature of the room - temperature of a material does affect the speed with which waves can travel and the value that you were given as a standard for comparison was based on room temperature. Anything significantly higher or lower than that and we could not use that as a comparison. The second lab allowed you to observed the sound produced by a pure-tone source (tuning fork) and a multiple-tone source (your voice). The clean sine traces we associate with waves were clearly visible for the tuning forks, but your voice did not produce such a nice pattern. Actually, if you accidentally struck the tuning forks hard enough, you might have gotten a mix of tones – the fundamental tone and an overtone. We’ll talk about this more in class on Monday. For the tone-dialer software – many people wonder about the distinct sound that each key of your phone dialing pad produces. Well, you are now qualified to discuss the tone pattern the phone company uses to produce each number’s sound. People will think you are very smart.

Physical Science E began their discussion of sound. Carry with you everything that you learned in the last chapter, as it will be needed for this chapter, as well. Sound, a longitudinal mechanical wave is so ubiquitous in our daily lives that we often take it for granted. This chapter allows you to add more vocabulary to your wave lexicon and examine specific aspects of sound waves such as loudness and the decibel scale, the production of sound by musical instruments, the function of the ear, the ability to hear and produce sounds by a variety of living creatures and the uses of ultrasound. Some good stuff, don’t you know…

Physics F and G explored how we quantitatively describe simple harmonic motion. The period, frequency and amplitude of mass-spring and pendulum systems were discussed and the calculations for these features were practiced. You will work with factors affecting the period of a pendulum in next week’s lab.

Homework

Honors Physics A: None
Physical Science B: Complete lab write up
Physical Science E: None
Physics F and G: None