A Beautiful Day To Blog!

Hola, Nicole here!
Such a beautiful day out... too bad it isn't going to last!

Alrighty, on with the blogging!
Today we were reminded that "Contributions to the Determination of the Speed of Light" is due tomorrow if you didn't hand it in today.

We also were given "The Nature of Light: Part 2 - The Wave and Particle Models of Light Problems" booklet and were told to do questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.
We then corrected them, and here they are:

1. Question
When a "particle" such as a steel ball strikes a hard surface, its speed is usually reduced. If the speed of light were reduced how would the light appear to be different after the reflection as compared to the incoming light beam? (Need to use knowledge of how the speed of light, the wavelength of light, and the frequency are related from your work on waves.)

Answer
Simply the wavelength would change with the speed, since the frequency is a fixed number. The colours would change, and I thought of ROYGBIV. Red being the slowest, and violet being fastest.


3. Question
From the brief descriptions given above of Planck's quantum hypothesis, how does it compare with Newton's corpuscular theory?

Answer
In Planck's theory, energy came in small packets called quanta, which is somewhat similar to particles.


4. Question
We know now that Newton's corpuscular theory had limitations and that light really does not consist of particles. What can we learn about placing too great a belief in a theory and the kind of evidence needed to support the theory?

Answer
We learned that you need a lot of evidence, pure evidence that came from experimentation to support theories such as this.


5. Question
Galileo attempted to measure the speed of light using lanterns on two hilltops. Explain why this technique might have worked if he was attempting to find the speed of sound, but now the speed of light.

Answer
Simply sound is so much more easier to measure since it is much much slower then light.


6. Question
What technique allowed Fizeau to measure time accurately enough to determine the speed of light much better than Galileo?

Answer
Click here for a very good description of what Fizeau did.


7. Question
What was it about Michelson's technique that allowed him to measure the speed of light so accurately?

Answer
Click here to see what Ms K showed us describing Michelson's technique.
The large distance and speed of rotation is what made this accurate.


8. Question
After doing his experiments on two mountains, Michelson did another series of experiments in a long evacuated tube. What improvements did this new method have?

Answer
Since the tube was 1.6kms long, this eliminated haze and air density which can alter results.


After that, we were given another "Chart for Evaluating the Models of Light" and are told to do it on the Wave Model. I believe its due tomorrow.

Anyways, that is it :) Archimedes is to scribe for tomorrow!