1,682 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2019
    1. The movement of these ions through cell membranes is crucial to the motion of nerve impulses through nerve axons.

      Membranes and batteries and capacitors have similar structure.

    2. it is the electrostatic force that not only holds the molecule together but gives the molecule structure and strength.

      Mentioned in terms of complex organization, Session 7.

    1. Sketch the electric field lines in the vicinity of two opposite charges, where the negative charge is three times greater in magnitude than the positive.

      BANG! Another exercise I like.

    2. The strength of the field is proportional to the closeness of the field lines—more precisely, it is proportional to the number of lines per unit area perpendicular to the lines

      also a flux law

    3. The number of field lines leaving a positive charge or entering a negative charge is proportional to the magnitude of the charge

      A flux law. If we were using calculus, there would be a huge calculus equation for this law, but the verbal form here is perfectly righteous and useful.

    1. With the  vector pointing rightward, it is effectively pointing at the center of the Nardo Ring — it is centripetal.

      This statement and surrounding statements mentioned in HW 03.

    1. This electric field strength is the same at any point 5.00 mm away from the charge  that creates the field.

      Spherical symmetry, very handy, though lots of trig is possible. All complicated fields, like the electric field of a charged metal plate in a battery, is built up of zillions of point charge fields (using calculus and trig for days).

    2. The electric field is defined in such a manner that it represents only the charge creating it and is unique at every point in space.

      Very important. This cannot be done with forces. Cf., Session 7

  2. Aug 2019
    1. observed charges

      The author is being tricky here. QUarks are subatomic particles with partial charges, The up quark (u) has charge $$+\frac{2}{3}e$$ and the down quark (2) has fractional charge \(-\frac{1}{3}e\)

      1. neutron = dud
      2. proton = uud

      However, quarks are hard to pull out of a proton or neutron and have never been observed in isolation. *

    2. explore the nature of the force between charges.

      The electromagnetic interaction is trickier than the gravitational interaction, because

      • there are two kinds of charge, and
      • there is repulsion as well as attraction.

      For this reason, deciding the net electrical force on an electron or a proton, or an array of electrons or an array of protons, can be inticate, accounting-wise, because you have to account for

      1. the geometry of the array,
      2. the sign of the charges, and
      3. the repulsion or attraction of the charges on each other
    1. The sliding motion stripped electrons away from the child’s body, leaving an excess of positive charges, which repel each other along each strand of hair.

      If the sliding motion is the seat of this little kid's pant, then why do excess positive charges end up along each strand of hair?

      We will understand this conundrum directly.

  3. Jul 2019
    1. They are about the same to the nearest power of 10.

      This is a horrible sentence.

      When a scientist deals with huge numbers, as in astronomy, it is sometimes "close enough" if they have the same power of 10 in scientific notation.

      1. Mars polar cap \(= 1.00 \times 10^{15}\, \text{tons}\)
      2. Greenland ice cap \(2.85 \times 10^{15}\, \text{tons}\)

      So a better sentence would be this: \(\text{\color{blue}The mass of frozen water in the Mars polar cap }\)\(\text{\color{blue}is of the same order as the Greenland ice cap}.\)

      One commonly hears egghead scientists saying that two quantities "are about the same order," and by that they mean the two quantities are righteous and equivalent.

    2. polar cap area

      Using \(\pi r^2\) for the area here is an underestimation, because \(\pi r^2\) is good for a flat circle, but the polar cap is not flat! It is curvature.

      However, using \(\pi r^2\) is

      1. easy
      2. and close enough
    3. At a pressure of less than 0.006 bar, the boiling point is as low or lower than the freezing point, and water changes directly from solid to vapor without an intermediate liquid state (as does “dry ice,” carbon dioxide, on Earth).

      Sublimation. Good comparison to what \(CO_2\) ice does here at the surface of Earth.

    4. 0.007 bar, less than 1% that of Earth.

      Standard 1.00 atmosphere of pressure on Earth = 1.01325 bars, or, as they say on the Weather Channel, 1013.25 millibars. This is the atmospheric pressure on a day of fair weather at sea level. A similar fair day in Denver, one mile altitude, would be less than 1013.25 millibars.

      Mars atmospheric pressure is 0.007 bar or 7 millibars.

      For comparison: The central pressure of a hurricane is considered extremely dangerous if it gets to 900 millibars. E.g., Hurricane Irma hit the Florida Keys in 2017 at Category 4, 929 millibars central pressure. Very violent.

    5. the runoff channels are probably older than the lunar maria, presumably about 4 billion years old.

      Nice estimate based on cratering rate. SO... it has been a long time since Mars has had a wet climate.

    6. Several types of clouds can form in the martian atmosphere.

      We would consider the dust clouds of Mars or of Earth (like in the Sahara) as different from the \(H_2 O\) clouds, which are microdroplets of liquid water held aloft by rising air currents.

    1. behavior of planets based on their paths through space.

      "...based on their paths." This is bass ackward relative to, e.g., Ptolemy. For Ptolemy, he based everything on circles and forced everything into a complex system involving epicycles, deferents, equants etc. To some degree, Copernicus and Galileo were also stuck thinking "circles." Kepler, however, took the path that Nature showed him in Tycho's measurements -- especially Mars' ellipse -- and then figured out a pattern from that. And he figured out three patterns, actually.

    2. The square of a planet’s orbital period is directly proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of its orbit.

      We now leverage Kepler's Third Law to use in any star system for which we can measure orbital distance, e.g., by parallax, and orbital periods. Black holes, which we cannot see, can reveal themselves in this way.

    3. sum of the distance from two special points inside the ellipse to any point on the ellipse is always the same

      Technical definition of ellipse, sounds rough... HOWEVER, it is the reason that the string method in Fig. 3 works. The length of the string is "always the same," if you are careful.

    4. Three years after the publication of Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus, Tycho Brahe was born

      This shows the slowness of scientific development in those days.

    5. Note that the eccentricities of the planets’ orbits in our solar system are substantially less than shown here.

      Correct. Comets and asteroids, however, do commonly have ellipticity of this level or more.

    6. The universe could be a bit more complex than the Greek philosophers had wanted it to be.

      The scientific end of the celestial spheres, although celestial sphere is still a lovely image outside of science. : )

    7. If the foci (or tacks) are moved to the same location, then the distance between the foci would be zero. This means that the eccentricity is zero and the ellipse is just a circle; thus, a circle can be called an ellipse of zero eccentricity. In a circle, the semimajor axis would be the radius.

      Good to keep in mind: a circle is just a specially symmetric case of an ellipse, \(e=0\)

    1. objects orbiting at large distances from a massive object will move more slowly than objects that are closer to that central mass.

      E.g., a comet really moving fast at perihelion and slowing down at aphelion. E.g., Uranus and Neptune. Nearly the same mass, but orbital semimajor axes 19.2 AU for Uranus and 30 AU for Neptune; their orbital "years" are 84 years for Uranus but 164 years for Neptune.

    2. the Galaxy is roughly spherical

      Physicists are always making assumptions like this, spherical galaxy, spherical planet, spherical this, spherical that. There is even a nerdish physics joke for which the punch line is, "Consider a spherical cow."

      Physics humor. :\

      Anyway, physicists do this to make things easier at the start, then they make more detailed, intricate models, as things progress

    3. least 2 × 1012MSun, which is about twenty times greater than the amount of luminous matter.

      TWENTY TIMES!!!! Holy Toledo! Visible matter is like a drip from a Slurpee!

    4. Rotation Curve of the Galaxy

      There is a ton of fancy calculus behind the blue part of the graph. So the theory literally falls short of observations (red)

    1. the nearer a planet is to the Sun, the greater its orbital speed.

      Sir Isaac Newton figured out why this is true, in his theory of universal gravitation -- which is a few chapters ahead.

    2. clumsy and lacking the beauty and symmetry of its successor.

      Symmetry is a powerful tool, because it is not subjective -- it can be expressed mathematically. E.g., the symmetry of positive and negative numbers relative to zero, whereby \(\left( -2 \right)^2 = \left( 2\right)^2\) and both \(=4\)

    3. This animation (http://tiny.cc/88cyqy) shows the phases of Venus. You can also see its distance from Earth as it orbits the Sun. The Astronomy Picture of the Day has an animation of Venus  https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060110.html (http://tiny.cc/vadyqy) and a  set of images of Venus as viewed from Earth.  https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170317.html (http://tiny.cc/ebdyqy)

      Cool animations!

    4. His great contribution to science was a critical reappraisal of the existing theories of planetary motion and the development of a new Sun-centered, or heliocentric, model of the solar system.

      Good description, in a nutshell, for Copernicus' contribution

    5. predictions

      YES! This is what scientists want to do: predict the position of a previously unseen planet like Neptune, predict the landing place of a spacecraft sent to Mars, etc.

    1. We can use Kepler’s law (see Orbits and Gravity) and our knowledge of the visible star to measure the mass of the invisible member of the pair.

      One short sentence, but powerful. Thank you, Professor Kepler!

    1. Heat escaping from the interior provides energy for the formation of our planet’s mountains, valleys, volcanoes, and even the continents and ocean basins themselves.

      Main source of forces and motion = convection. Huge blobs of molten lava convect from core to surface, like water boiling in a pot on the stove or a thunderstorm convecting water vapor and liquid water in the atmosphere.

    2. This is the way many, but not all, of the mountain ranges on Earth were formed.

      Another example: the Himalayas. They formed when the subcontinent of India bashed northward into Eurasia.

    3. To find primitive rock, we must look to smaller objects such as comets, asteroids, and small planetary moons

      Yup -- asteroids and comets are chunks of history going all the way back.

    1. f we then put this speed and the Hubble constant into Hubble’s law equation, we can solve for the distance.

      Or, more simply, read it off the diagram.

    2. When Hubble laid his own distance estimates next to measurements of the recession velocities (the speed with which the galaxies were moving away), he found something stunning: there was a relationship between distance and velocity for galaxies. The more distant the galaxy, the faster it was receding from us.

      There is a legend about this, that this relation came to Hubble as he drove down to Pasadena after a night's observing. He pulled his car over on the shoulder and stopped to think. It is a twisty mountain road; I have driven it myself. At some time later, hours later as the legend goes, a traffic cop pulled alongside to check him out. All was well -- he was just thinking of what it all meant, that the entire universe was expanding. Edwin Hubble was probably very late for his breakfast, and we still ponder this meaning today.

    3. Humason was collaborating with Hubble by photographing the spectra of faint galaxies

      They were especially looking at the near-ultraviolet H and K lines of calcium, $$\lambda_H=396.8\:nm\longrightarrow\text{toward red, longer wavelengths}$$

      $$\lambda_K=393.4\:nm\longrightarrow\text{also toward red, longer wavelengths}$$

      Here is an image of the sun in a filter that only transmits the Ca K line, very purply blue.

      So a galaxy's K line will be less purply blue, maybe an aqua blue or even green... i.e., shifted toward the red end of the Roy G. Biv spectrum

    4. Basically, if we can obtain a spectrum of a galaxy, we can immediately tell how far away it is.

      Yes, definitely handy, because if we make a big telescope we can see and catch spectra of really distant, faint galaxies! E.g., from Kirshner, PNAS, 2004,

    5. spectra of galaxies contained a wealth of information about the composition of the galaxy and the velocities of these great star systems.

      How it was discovered

    1. Geologists estimate that about half of Earth’s current internal heat budget comes from the decay of radioactive isotopes in its interior.

      Which helps keep lava in its molten state!

    2. snow

      For Florida students, this term, snow, indicates a rare solid form of \(H_2 O\) which,at low temperatures, forms six-sided crystals that are very cold and fall from the upper atmosphere. Rare in Florida since the last Ice Age.

    3. This composite image of the Moon’s surface

      Compared to Earth, where impact craters are rare, the Moon is loaded with craters. That is because Earth has weather, volcanoes, earthquakes and continental drift.

    4. emission of particles such as electrons

      Like radioactive carbon-14 \(^{14}C\) spontaneously emitting an electron from its nucleus to become nitrogen-14 \(^{14} N\) which is stable. Most nitrogen, 99.632%, is nitrogen-14.

      • Nucleus of carbon-14 = 6 protons, 8 neutrons
      • Nucleus of nitrogen-14 = 7 protons, 7 neutrons. (The seventh proton used to be a neutron in carbon-14!)
    5. if we have a very large number of radioactive atoms of one type (say, uranium), there is a specific time period, called its half-life, during which the chances are fifty-fifty that decay will occur for any of the nuclei.

      A lovely definition of half-life!

    1. Both asteroids and comets are believed to be small chunks of material left over from the formation process of the solar system.

      Unlike the surface rocks most places on Earth. E.g., the Florida limestone bedrock which, in its oldest layers, is about 35 million years, less than 1% of the age of the solar system.

    1. the wavelength emitted by the source

      This means, as emitted by the source if it were in a stationary laboratory.

      \(\Delta \lambda=\left(\lambda_{lab}-\lambda_{observed}\right)\)

      So \(\frac{\Delta \lambda}{\lambda}\) is the percent change in wavelength.

      Similar expressions exist for frequencies \(f_{lab}\) and \(f_{observer}\)

    2. The variable v is counted as positive if the velocity is one of recession, and negative if it is one of approach. Solving this equation for the velocity, we find

      We will tackle this kind of calculation in Module 3 when we study galaxies.

    3. describe changes in the wavelengths of radio waves or X-rays

      So a radio wave that has a smaller frequency than normal is redshifted. An xray wave with a higher frequency is blueshifted... all of this even though we do not perceive radio or xray as having color.

    4. The wavelengths of the absorption lines can be measured accurately, however, and their Doppler shift is relatively simple to detect.

      absorption OR emission lines can display redshift and blueshift

    1. supermassive black holes by astronomers, to indicate that the mass they contain is far greater than that of the typical black hole created by the death of a single star.

      Definition of supermassive black hole. Some galaxies' central black hole is even larger than ours.

    2. 0.13 light-year

      This is about 8000 AU, so much larger than our solar system, way past Neptune, out into the Oort Cloud. But comets from the Oort Cloud have orbital periods on the order of 200,000 years or so. But the stars in this image take a few decades!! Extremely fast, because gravity is so strong, due to Sgr A*

    3. It appears that the monster black hole at the center of our Galaxy is not finished “eating.” At the present time, we observe clouds of gas and dust falling into the galactic center at the rate of about 1 MSun per thousand years.
    4. These stars have now been observed for almost two decades,

      First one with a good orbital track was S2, on a 15.2 year orbit about the black hole Sgr A*.

      Cf., Schödel R. et al., "A star in a 15.2-year orbit around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way" Nature 419, 694–696 (2002),

  4. pressbooks.online.ucf.edu pressbooks.online.ucf.edu
    1. most important discoveries was the verification of water ice

      Astronomers are always looking for signs of water on planets, comets, asteroids, moons and on exoplanets.

    2. resulting Doppler shift

      Here is a freight train blowing its horn as it passes the rail fan's video camera. At about 0:39, the horn shifts from a high note (while approaching) to a lower note (while moving away from the camera).

      This is a Doppler Shift for sound waves.

      Electromagnetic waves -- radar, visible light, even xrays -- also experience Doppler shifting. It is how the sheriff's deputy nabs speeders with his radar gun, and it is how we can measure velocities toward or away from Earth.

    3. radar-bright water ice

      This means that water ice has a relatively high radar reflectivity. It does not dissipate the incoming radar beam, but bounces back a lot: strong return signal, "bright."

    4. its orbit has the high eccentricity of 0.206, Mercury’s actual distance from the Sun varies from 46 million kilometers at perihelion to 70 million kilometers at aphelion

      Here is a set of diagrams that show the aphelion and perihelion in true proportion,

    1. our Glaxy is not unique in its characteristics. There are many other flat, spiral-shaped islands of stars, gas, and dust in the universe.

      Helpful for comparisons.

    1. Probing the Atom

      Skim this section for basic information about the discovery of the structure of atoms. Prior to Rutherford, we though atoms were just blobs of something sprinkled with electrons.

    2. The number of neutrons is not necessarily the same for all atoms of a given element.

      Conceptual definition of isotope. It is the number of protons that defines which element you have, but the nucleus can have any amount of neutrons it can hold onto.

    3. They are also shown much closer than they would actually be

      This is the remarkable fact about atoms: they are mostly empty space! Makes a person think.

    1. potential solutions to most of the major problems raised by the chemistry of the Moon

      Important parts of the theory, though it is not yet a stone cold lock.

    2. Moon is both tantalizingly similar to Earth and frustratingly different.

      Yes, as the moon rocks from Apollo show. They have been analyzed for decades and compared to terrestrial rocks.

    1. The concentration of matter in the arms exerts sufficient gravitational force to keep the arms together over long periods of time

      Big result, very tough to calculate.

    1. Such a fall occurs when a single larger object breaks up during its violent passage through the atmosphere

      Excellent example is the Allende meteorite, which fell as a larger object that broke up, down in Mexico, on Feb. 8, 1969.

    2. The most remarkable thing about these organic molecules is that they include equal numbers with right-handed and left-handed molecular symmetry.

      This is a huge mystery, the handedness of sugars and amino acids.

    1. If we know the distance to a galaxy, we can convert how bright the galaxy appears to us in the sky into its true luminosity

      For stars and galaxies, apparent luminosity (what we see on Earth) depends on its distance and its intrinsic luminosity (as measured at the galaxy or star itself).

    2. If every light bulb in a huge auditorium is a standard 100-watt bulb, then bulbs that look brighter to us must be closer, whereas those that look dimmer must be farther away.
    3. (credit: NASA, ESA, A. Riess (STScI))

      I cannot find the original image on NASA servers. However, this image from 2014 is helpful for visualizing a Type Ia supernova: Image: Katzman Automated Imaging Telescope/LOSS

      "Type Ia supernovae have acquired global importance in recent years through their use as distance indicators..."

    1. In this simplified model of a hydrogen atom

      A very important diagram to keep in mind for most topics this semester, because most of the information about the stars and galaxies of the universe comes to us from starlight and its spectral lines!