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Flashcards

Relativity & The Quantum Revolution

Dan Anderson English 56 cards

Cards in this deck (56)

  1. 1The essence of relativityEveryone is equal and your point of view doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter where you are, physics always looks the same. It doesn’t matter how you’re moving. It’s the great equalizer and puts us all on equal footing but can lead to bizarre notions. Elaborates on Copernicus revolution (no longer center of U). No place or state of motion that is special.
  2. 2The second of the enormous ideas of 20th Century physics?Quantum physics. The notion that at the fundamental scales, the universe is grainy in a sense, built up of little discrete parts, which is continuously sub-dividable until reaching the single molecule point. So the universe is not continuously sub-dividable.
  3. 3Quantizes meansMakes discrete. Also means the universe is not infinitely sub-dividable.
  4. 4Comparative gists of relativity vs quantum theory -the two big ideas of 20th Century Physics.No place or motion in the universe is special and the universe is fundamentally discrete both in material terms and in terms of the energy required to make it go.
  5. 5Most easily understandable of the modern physics ideas?Special Relativity because it requires no mathematics but if expressed that way it only requires high school algebra.
  6. 6Einstein’s extension of Special RelativityGeneral relativity -the theory of gravity and the existence of of bizarre things like black holes, worm holes, white holes & the kind of time travel depicted in movie contact. It’s harder to grasp mathematically
  7. 7The persistent question?Is there a standard state of motion or rest? If there is, what is it? Must reflect on how these answers changed from classical physics times.
  8. 8How did ancients answer persistent question?With science, physics and philosophy where universe divided into two realms ; earthly One (set of rules for solids,…) and another where solving for heavenly realm. Earthly is drawn to earth’s center & eventually at rest. For heavens it’s time move perpetually in a circle.
  9. 9How did Galileo first discover that solar system like motions were not unique to earth?Spying observations of Jupiter and its satellite moons and the phases of Venus.
  10. 10When we have a full moon, it always ____ at _______.When we have a full moon, it always rises at sunset. And always sets at sunrise.
  11. 11Where in our everyday lives is the best, otherwise non-intuitive example of Galileo’s & Newton’s laws revealing objects in motion want to continue in that motion at the same rate in a straight line?Ice hockey -especially in the case of the puck where friction is low.
  12. 12Best and perhaps one of the longest examples of a body continuing in a nearly straight line at a constant rate?Pioneer and Voyager Spacecraft, which have both been running straight and true for over 30 years.
  13. 13What is it to be a closet Aristotelian?Belief that pushes and pulls on an object are required otherwise the natural state would be one of rest.
  14. 14What’s significant about 1642?Galileo dies and Isaac Newton is born and it’s 150 years after Columbus sailed.
  15. 15Newton’s First Law of MotionInertia -objects in motion move uniformly in that motion, in a straight line unless otherwise acted upon. Objects at rest remain at rest,…
  16. 16Newton’s second lawF=MA
  17. 17Newtons third lawConservation of momentum (equal and opposite).
  18. 18Newton getting hit on the head with an apple is myth but what’s historically true about the apple and what did he compare it with in order to prove universal gravitation (one divided by the square of the distance)?Compared with moon (roughly orbiting 250,000 miles away) every 27 days and determined that the pull on the moon was one thirty six hundredths of the pull on the apple.
  19. 19What kind of rate of change of motion would it take to require the moon 250,000 miles away to go around the earth once every 27 days?F = 1/3600(apple) because it’s roughly 60 times farther from the center of the earth than the apple (sqr root of 3600 is 60). He unified terrestrial and celestial motion .
  20. 20The original relativity principle was not Einstein’s, it was ______ & _______.Galileo’s & Newton’s,
  21. 21The only type of physics in the Galileo/Newton epoch?Motion and they expressed it as relativity stating that physics are the same provided that it’s constant motion.
  22. 22What really is charge (as in electromagnetic)?We don’t know but it’s a fundamental property of matter where like charges (positive or negative) repel which, like with gravity, falls off in strength by the square of the distance and the force is attractive where the two charges differ.
  23. 23Changing a magnetic field creates?An electric field
  24. 24Changing magnetism alwaysProduces electricity
  25. 25Speed of light186,000 MPS, 300,000 KMPS, one foot per nano second (which is a billionth of a second
  26. 26Who came up with all this wave stuff?Scotsman James Clerk Maxwell during the Civil war.
  27. 27Who was the first to prove this wave stuff physically?Heinrich Hertz from Bonn Germany in 1887
  28. 28What was the other big find in 1887?The Michelson–Morley experiment was an attempt to measure the relative motion of the Earth and the luminiferous aether,[A 1] a supposed medium permeating space that was thought to be the carrier of light waves. The experiment was performed between April and July 1887 by American physicists Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and published in November of the same year.[1
  29. 29How fast does the earth go around the sun?20 miles per second
  30. 30What are the requirements for an event?Specified place and time. Events are the key things in relativity
  31. 31Contrast of average coal electric power plant to Nuclear producing same annual wattageThe stark contrast is the amount of material going in; 1500-2000 coal train cars per week vs a couple truckloads of nuclear fuel every couple of years
  32. 32E= MC Squared is not aboutNuclear fusion; it’s about how much energy is consumed or given off in any number of processes from burning candles to fusion
  33. 33The sun loses how much mass every second?4 million tons
  34. 34Special Relativity does not mean all things are _____!Relative. People say they are and make these claims in application of moral & philosophical relativism and aesthetics, which is nonsense. If anything the TOR points out that all things are the same for all observers in uniform motion and that the speed of light is also an exception to relativism.
  35. 35The general theory of relativity is a theory of _______.Gravity
  36. 36The two reasons Newton’s description of gravity as a force of pulling is no longer satisfying.1. We know that planetary bodies cannot respond instantaneously or exceed C and instantaneous (spooky) action at a distance is inconsistent with relativity.
    2. Distance is not an absolute and depends upon the observer.
  37. 37Which has more difficult mathematics, special or general?General
  38. 38Property of how hard it is to accelerate somethingInertial mass (how hard it is to accelerate something) or gravitational mass (how heavy something feels) are essentially the same thing and the fact that they are is considered the principle of equivalence
  39. 39Why are the astronauts weightless?Because they, their spaceship and everything inside are already in free fall. Their inertial masses and their gravitational masses are the same thing.
  40. 40When is gravity least noticeable?When in stabilized unaccelerated free fall.
  41. 41For Einstein, gravity is not a ______, it is the _____ ______ of _____ ______.For Einstein, gravity is not a force, it is the geometrical _ structure of space time.
  42. 42What’s the other half of general relativity?Curved space time
  43. 43Objects move in the straightest possible lines in space time but there’s not ___Objects move in the straightest possible lines in space time but there’s not Euclidean
  44. 44Einstein’s answer to the question, “What causes space time to curve?”It’s curved or warped by the presence of matter and energy. He published general theory in 1914 after 9 years of work.
  45. 45The general theoryMatter and energy cause spacetime to curve.
    • Intheabsenceofforces,objectsmoveinthestraightestpossiblepaths
    (geodesics) in curved spacetime.
  46. 46Kepler discovered and Newton verified that orbits were elliptical. Who discovered that theses ellipses were imperfect varying as much as 1/100th of a degree of angle every century through orbital precession?Einstein through general relativity.
  47. 47A black hole by definition isA place where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or waves can escape because the required escape speed would be faster than light. By comparison, escape speed for earth is 7 miles per minute and from the sun, which has more gravity is 400 miles per minute
  48. 48Most physicists do believe black holes exist based up spinning gases and other ancillary evidence which can be seen. However, there’s no evidence for ____ or _____ except to say that one interpretation of the formulas suggests the possibilityWhite holes and worm holes.
  49. 49What principle brought on the farewell to determinism and farewell to the clockwork universeHeisenberg uncertainty Principle because quantum mechanics dispels these as myths. Why because things are quantized coming in certain numbers of discrete units. Why? If there’s a minimum size to the interaction we can have we must interact with it and that interaction cannot be arbitrarily small. We become interacted in our experiments, no longer unbiased judges. We can’t observe it without affecting it.
  50. 50Photon particle like experimentCompton
  51. 51Original term atom, as used by Democrates?Indivisible, which the tam ultimately turned out not to be so.
  52. 52Possibly the only scientist to receive a statute bust likeness in his lifetimeChantrey's large statue of Dalton, erected while Dalton was alive was placed in Manchester Town Hall in 1877. He "is probably the only scientist who got a statue in his lifetime".
  53. 53What do Bohr’s atomic model, Planck’s resolution of the ultraviolet catastrophe, and Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect all have in common?Test
  54. 54Contrast atoms to moleculesAtoms are single neutral particles. Molecules are neutral particles made of two or more atoms bonded together. An ion is a positively or negatively charged particle.
  55. 55Three fundamental forces?1. Gravity, which includes the geometrical structure of space time in which no matter is exempt. It is the least understood force.
    2. Electro weak force (electromagnetic as described by Maxwell’s equations & weak nuclear force)
    3. The strong force or the color force (acts between quark).
  56. 56Unified Theory AKAString Theory (1970s with intractable mathematical problems, faded but resurrected in 95).

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Flashcards on Relativity & The Quantum Revolution , created by Dan Anderson on 08/12/2023.
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Dan Anderson
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