Energy, Be it Heat or Light

Intro Physics worked with latent heat and phase change today in class. We discussed phase changes and phase-change diagrams, then looked at how to calculate the amount of energy required to change the phase of a substance - latent heat. We discussed why latent heat of vaporization was greater than latent heat of fusion and worked through an example where folks had to calculate the energy required to heat a substance, change its phase, then continue to heat it to a final temperature. We'll go over the homework problems in class tomorrow before beginning to review for Thursday's exam.

Physics D and Honors Physics began to work on the area of spherical mirrors today in class. We looked at the the types of curved mirrors (concave and convex), the nature of radius of curvature and focal length and started to examine how these types of mirrors formed images. We'll continue with this tomorrow for D Block and Honors Physics will work on a lab that will focus on image formation and the formula we introduced today in class. Physics F conducted this lab today, looking at images formed both by concave and convex mirrors. Concave mirrors form both real and virtual images, depending on placement of the object, but convex mirrors only form virtual images. We'll start discussing the details of image formation tomorrow in class, and review our lab as part of the class discussion.