Many Waves

Physics A continued their lab work on pendulums. Folks finished up gathering their data and will work on their graphs in class tomorrow. Remember the purpose of the investigation - which of the tested factors (mass, amplitude, length) impacts the period of the oscillation. Look at your data and make that determination before hunting down the theory to back up your results.

Physics B started their discussion of vibrations and simple harmonic motion. We defined properties of periodic motion and then discussed the special circumstances that describe the special case of simple harmonic motion. Mass-spring and pendulum systems were used to show how restoring force was proportional to displacement and looked at how to calculate the value of that restoring force. Tomorrow, we'll take a harder look at period of oscillation for both mass-spring and pendulum systems and revisit our pendulum labs to highlight the discussion.

Intro Physics reviewed their phase change labs, as well as concepts associated with phases of matter and phase changes. We took another look at the characteristic shape of phase-change diagrams and spent some extra time reading about and contemplating plasmas, which is the most common phase of matter in the universe, but not one we interact as frequently as the other phases. Tomorrow, MCAS practice for heat and temperature.

Honors Physics reviewed basic properties of sound, then moved to the arena of loudness and intensity. We defined intensity as the rate of energy flow per unit area, then applied that definition to how the ear perceives sound and how the decibel scale gives us a better perspective of loudness as we understand it in daily life. We also took time to define and look at examples of forced vibrations and resonance. Make sure you can provide a basic definition of resonance and describe examples where resonance can or has been seen in daily life.