Funkie Friday

Honors Physics reviewed their work on color and polarization and then moved into the area of refraction. The relationship between EM wave speed and density of medium was reinforced and used to explain the index of refraction. Snell’s Law uses this relative speed of light in various media to predict what would be the angle of a refracted ray, give the angle of the incident ray and identities of the two media. The fact that refraction is wavelength dependent helped explain the concept of dispersion and different materials were compared on how the various wavelengths of visible light were slowed down as they passed through. The homework tonight will allow you to ponder the consequences of refraction and practice solving problems using Snell’s Law. On Monday, we’ll start looking at lenses and Tuesday’s lab activity will concentrate on image formation by converging and diverging lenses.

Physical Science B went over their sound and light exam and then began to work problems using Coulomb’s Law. For those problems, remember to convert any charge value presented with a metric prefix to its full value in scientific notation before placing them in the formula. Also, some problems might not seem to give you full information (especially about charge), but a little thinking about the situation should allow you to see past that to the solution. For your worksheet, here are the answers so you can check your work:

1. 0.387 m
2. 0.585 m
3. 1.15 m
4. -143 N
5. 3.50 x 10^-4 N
6. 1.4 x 10^-3 N
7. 1.6 x 10^-19 C
8. 1.6 x 10^-19 C
9. 1.6 x 10^-19 C
10. 2.2 x 10^-17 C

Note: if you use 9 x 10⁹ N x m²/C² as your value for “k,” your answers may be slightly different than those above. Monday, you’ll get to work on a lab that will let you see the effects of static charge and the forces that result. Then, it will be on to electric current.

Physical Science E discussed their sound and light exams and then continued their discussion of static charge and the forces produced. Coulomb's Law was discussed, as was the concept of electric field lines. Students learned how to interpret field line diagrams and use them to predict electric field strength. On Monday, we will go over the review questions for this section and then take time to practice using Coulomb's Law to solve electric force problems.

Physics F spent time going over review work for light, reflection and mirrors and then turned attention to color and polarization. You should be able to recognize the primary colors of the additive and subtractive color systems and predict which colors would result as you mix pigments or light or shine light on a pigmented substance.

Physics G tied up loose ends for light, reflection and mirrors. We spent time reviewing the mathematics of mirrors and will begin our discussion of color and polarization on Monday.

Homework

Honors Physics A: Complete Conceptual Challenge p. 565, 15.1 Section Review and Practiced 15A
Physical Science B and E: Complete Coulomb’s Law worksheet
Physics F: Complete Conceptual Challenge p. 545 and Chapter Review items #37-44
Physics G: Complete Conceptual Challenge p. 545