Finally!

Midterm Reviews - Over
Midterm Exams - Over
Back to Work

Physics A began their work with heat and temperature today with a defining of temperature and its relationship to internal energy. We then looked at thermal expansion and the various temperature scales commonly in use in both daily life and the scientific community. Intro Physics did the same thing, but without the internal energy piece. Tomorrow, Physics A works on a series of lab investigations for heat transfer and how it impacts temperature change and phase change. Intro Physics will finish up with temperature and then begin to take a look at heat energy.

Physics B worked on two lab investigations during the long block. The first examined heat transfer between two substances at different temperatures and used that information to calculate the specific heat of water. The graphs produce by mixing the hot and cold water were mirror images and the amount of heat lost by the hot water and the heat gained by the cold water were quite similar and that is what we would predict based on conservation of energy. The second lab looked at the heat of fusion of water, the amount of heat energy required to promote a solid-liquid phase change. Tomorrow, we'll dig deeper into the temperature and temperature change part of these experiments and heat heat energy starting on Thursday.

Honors Physics began their work with vibrations and waves. We contrasted periodic motion with simple harmonic motion and looked at how Hooke's Law is used to calculate the restoring force of a spring. We also looked at how to calculate the restoring force of a pendulum and detailed the changes in restoring force, acceleration, velocity and energy for both mass-spring systems and pendulums. Tomorrow, we'll look at quantifying SHM through period, frequency and amplitude and that will lead us to our lab on Thursday, which will center on pendulum motion.