Sunday, February 20, 2011

Astrophysics

E.1.1

E.1.2
A Stellar Cluster is a group of stars that are physically close to each other in space, and are caused due to Gravity, a Constellation on the other hand are patterns of stars due to our imaginations and are not necessarily physically close to each other.

E.1.3
1 light year is defined as the distance light travels in 1 year

3.0 x 10^8 x 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 = 9.46 x 10^15m

E.1.4
Compare the relative distances between stars within a galaxy and between galaxies, in terms of order of magnitude

E.1.5

Constellations appear to move over the period of one night. They appear to rotate around one direction.
In the Northern hemisphere it seems to rotate about the pole star.

Over a year the positions of the constellations are the same relative to one another, however the position of the pole star changes slightly every night.

The sun continues to rise from the east to the west, but over the year the arc gets bigger and the sun climbs higher in the sky.

It only appears to be moving due to the Earths rotation and its movement through space.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Quantum Physics

13.2.3 - Describe one piece of evidence for the existence of nuclear energy levels.

The energy of alpha particles has discrete values 

Because these alpha particles have discrete energies and are released from the nucleus, therefore proves the existence of discrete nuclear energy levels.

13.2.4 - Describe β+ decay, including the existence of the neutrino


This continuous spectrum is formed due to neutrons and anti-neutrons, when Beta emissions were calculated, the beta particles which were emitted had less kinetic energy than expected which opposed the law of conservation of energy. The particle Neutrino has no charge, extremely small mass and travels close to the speed of light and is the small particle responsible for the loss in kinetic energy and momentum.