Light and Optics

Convex Mirrors

Convex:
A convex mirror is a mirror that comes out towards the source of light, like depicted in the diagram. Convex mirrors have many uses, such as the passenger side mirror of a car. In a convex mirror problem, the image created by the light passing through the mirror is always upright, smaller, and virtual.

This diagram shows how the incident ray hits the mirror at an angle that reflects off upwards. The reflected ray reflects off, but the image is still created behind the mirror, which is why the image is virtual. The actual light rays never touch each other. 

This picture of a passenger side mirror of a car shows how the convex mirror makes images appear closer than they actually are. The mirror allows the driver to see more of his surroundings, but produces a virtual image, skewing the actual placement of the car. 

Tuning Fork and Palm Pipe Lab

Tuning Fork and Palm Pipe Lab
     Sound was the main topic of discussion in class this week. Although I wasn't here for the first half of the lab, the second half of the lab consisted of measuring the length of a palm pipe, measuring the diameter of the pipe, and finally solving the wavelength of the palm pipe. The palm pipe I got was .058m, so the wavelength was .247m. After plugging my numbers into the equation velocity=frequency times wavelength, I was able to solve the frequency, which was 1388.66hz.

My Palm pipe, number 15, note F6.

All of my group's palm pipes together. 

To end the lab, the whole class played their palm pipes to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with their respective notes.

Lemon Battery Lab

Lemon Battery Lab
In class, we made our own batteries consisting of lemons, pennies, and nails.

Real World Connection:
On the website http://www.apple.com/batteries/, it talks about how the iPad battery works.
iPad batteries are: made of lithium ion, light but give a long life, and not required to be charged fully.
On the graph on the website, the term voltage was something I noticed quickly. In class, we learned that voltage is the electric field surrounding a charged object.  

Projectile Motion

Projectile Motion Lab:
     A projectile is an object with only the force of gravity acting upon it. After going down to the gym and recording the path of a basketball being shot, we tracked the flight on the Video Physics app.

 In this graph, we can derive that the slope of the basketball is constant while the distance over time steadily increases.












In this graph, we can see that the basketball moved in a parabolic shape. The peak of the graph is the moment in which the basketball was as complete rest.