classical physics jeopardy!

Classical Physics Jeopardy!!

Rules:

• There are three teams of up to 8 students, as equal as possible. The teacher may weight teams so that the strongest students are in smaller groups. (If there are more than 24 students, there should be more teams so that there are never more than 8 in a group.)
• The potpourri category does not have a 100-point question so that each team gets to choose the same number of questions. This works with 3 or 4 teams (and there shouldn't have to be more than 4 teams!)
• A little different from "traditional" Jeopardy -- answers are not in the form of a question.
  
• Each team elects a spokesperson at the beginning of the game. Only this person's answers count as the team's answer. A team loses 50 points every time the spokesperson does not confer with the group before answering, even if they were wrong! This is a group competition.
  
• Each team in turn chooses a question and gets the first chance to answer it.
• 100, 200, and 300-point questions: team has 30 seconds to conference before the spokesperson must answer or forfeit.
  
• 400 and 500-point questions: team has 1 minute to conference before the spokesperson must answer or forfeit.
• If the first team is incorrect, the next team in the sequence may answer for half points, and has half the conference time. If the second team is incorrect, this continues (further half points and half time) until all teams have had a chance.
• Daily Doubles -- Team may wager points up to what they have or the question value (whichever is larger). If they are incorrect, the next team may answer for half the given point value (not a wager).
• Final Jeopardy -- each team places a wager before the question is revealed. Each team has five minutes to solve the problem. Partial credit for each correct question: 0 correct = minus full wager, 1 correct = minus half the wager, 2 correct = plus half the wager, 3 correct = plus full wager.
  

Newton's Laws

1. F = ma is the most common form of which of Newton's laws? (Second)
   
2. A book pushes down on the table with 10 Newtons of force. With how much force does the table push back? (10 Newtons)
   
3. (Daily Double) A large man and a small woman are standing on a bus that comes to a stop. The woman stumbles, and the man keeps his footing. Who has more inertia? (The woman, because she has less mass.)
   
4. State Newton's Laws in sentence form. (1. An object in constant motion will remain in constant motion, and an object at rest will remain at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. 2. A force acting upon a massive object will cause that object to accelerate. 3. For every force applied to an object, the object exerts an equal and opposite force.)
   
5. A 1000-kg car is initially at rest. You push it with a constant force for 100 seconds, at which point it is traveling 5 m/s. What was your pushing force? (50 Newtons -- a = v/t = 5 m/s /100 s, f = ma = 1000 kg * 5/100 m/s/s.)
   

Vectors and Projectiles

1. I walk one block north, then one block south. What is the magnitude and direction of the resultant vector? (Zero, which has no direction.)
2. You throw a ball directly upwards, then catch it in your hand at the same height. It was in the air for a total of 8 seconds. At what time was the ball's velocity zero? (4 seconds after you threw it, at the point where it changed directions.)
3. Does a projectile on Earth experience horizontal acceleration, vertical acceleration, both, or neither? If there is acceleration, what causes it? (Vertical acceleration only -- caused by gravity. Also OK: Both, since there may be horizontal drag forces.)
4. Find the sum (magnitude and direction) of these vectors: 1 m/s up (0 degrees), 2 m/s to the right (90 degrees), and 3 m/s down (180 degrees). (Sqrt(8) m/s at 135 degrees.)
   
5. A cannonball is shot at some angle on level ground. What equation should you use to find how long the cannonball is in the air, and why? Assume it is shot from ground level and neglect air resistance. (v_y(t) = 0 = -gt + v_oy -- solving for t tells you the time at which vertical velocity is zero, which is the top of the arc. Twice this is the total flight time.)
   

Energy and Electronics

1. State the Work-Energy Theorem. (The work done on a system is equal to the total change in energy of the system.)
2. What equation relates voltage, current, and resistance? (Ohm's Law, V=IR.)
3. A 5-kg rock is held 10 m above the ground and dropped. How much kinetic energy does it have right before it hits the ground? Assume acceleration due to gravity is 10 m/s/s. (500 Joules -- KE = PE = mgh.)
4. What is the total resistance when a 10-Ohm resistor is connected in parallel with two 5-Ohm resistors that are connected in series? (1/(1/10 Ohms + 1/(5+5) Ohms) = 5 Ohms.)
5. (Daily Double) Describe how a generator in a hydroelectric dam produces an electric current. (The water turns a turbine, which turns a loop of wire in a magnetic field. This induces a current in the wire loop.)
   

Units

1. What is the SI unit of acceleration? ( m/s/s )
   
2. What is the SI unit of force, and what are its fundamental components? (Newton = kg*m/s^2)
3. What is the SI unit of work, and what are its fundamental components? (Joule = N * m = kg*m^2/s^2)
4. What is the SI unit of electric current, and what are its fundamental components? (Amp = coulomb/second)
   
5. What is the difference between weight and mass? (Weight is a force, and mass is a fundamental quantity. Weight is measured in Newtons, and mass is measured in kilograms. An object can have different weights depending on the situation, but its mass does not change.)

Potpourri

1. (Spare question) What is the gravitational acceleration at the surface of the earth, to one decimal place? (9.8 m/s/s)
   
2. What is the name of the force that your chair is exerting on you? (The normal force.)
3. How much force does a 1/10-kg apple exert while sitting stationary on Isaac's head? (1/10 kg * 10 m/s/s = 1 Newton.)
4. What is the first step in the scientific process? (Create a hypothesis.)
   
5. Name the four fundamental quantities and their SI units. (mass = kilograms, distance = meters, time = seconds, charge = coulombs)

Final Jeopardy
Category: Projectile motion

You are on the surface of Mars, where the gravitational acceleration is only 3.8 m/s/s. You get a running start and throw yourself into the air, with an initial velocity vector of 5 m/s at 30 degrees above horizontal. Neglect air resistance and presume the terrain is flat. 1. What is your velocity vector when you hit the ground again? 2. How long were you in the air? 3. How far did you jump?

1. 5 m/s at 30 degrees below horizontal (same as initial, but down).
2. 1.3 seconds
3. 5.6 meters

kitt peak!

hi everybody!! I'm up on top of kitt peak right now, we just had some dinners, and sunset's in about an hour so that's when we'll be startin' up the ol' 'scope. to be a hick about it. my room is very cozy and i had a nap when we got here this afternoon... I've been up since 4AM eastern, and it's been pretty rough. BUT I'll have a lot of great pictures of Lord Emsworth to put up when I get back, as well as some of Stan, Laura's koala.

No one managed to tell/remind me that/how I needed to order my night-lunch, but luckily we got here just a bit after 3 and the kitchen lady said it was fine that it was a few minutes late. so i get a night lunch after all :)

um... that's about it. more when i have stuff besides whining about how tired i am.

in da beginning...

I foresee a major discussion around the Genesis reading, especially given the number of physicists and vocal atheists in the class! Since I have long, complicated opinions on the topic, I'm going to post the potatoes here and only bring up the sirloin tips in class so I don't have to bore you.

First some basics about my position in all of this:

I was raised Lutheran, though these days I make it to church less frequently and the one I get to is actually Methodist, but ELCA and UMC are practically synonymous. I am skeptical about a lot of things in the Bible, but I do believe in the basic gist of it; i.e., God forgives our sins if we repent, Jesus died to save us, there is something after the death of the body besides nothingness (at least I want to believe that!).

Other than that, I take very few of the stories from the Bible literally. Genesis is an allegory (more on that), the virgin birth is a mistranslation (in the original language, the word used can mean "virgin" or "young woman"), and a lot of other stuff is hyperbole. Huge, enormous hyperbole, and events as interpreted by FALLIBLE HUMANS, YO!! *shakes fist at literal interpretations* Further, I think this non-tolerance of homosexuality and "preserving the sanctity of marriage" that religious conservatives in the US are stuffing down our throats is nonsense. That's a long and non-PC rant, so I won't go there. For now.

Finally (and perhaps mostly), I am a scientist, which means I question things and look for empirical evidence to support contentions. There are some things that I see as beyond the realm of science (at least as far as conclusive results are concerned), and this is where religion comes into my life, which is actually a frequent occurrence.

But on to Genesis. As a physicist and aspiring astronomer, not to mention skeptic, there is no way I can possibly take anything but the tiniest snippets of Genesis as truth. The one part I do see as unusually enlightened for an ancient (human!) writer, whether he was divinely inspired or not, is 4:3 (Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.) --- Big Bang, anyone? According to the prevalent theory, this is indeed what the first moments of the universe were like. First, there was nothing, not even technically space, since there was nothing by which to measure it or that could fill it or be aware of it in any way. Then suddenly, POW! energy EXPLODES out of the nothing (or from a higher dimension), and the new universe is so full of light (and no matter, yet) that it expands even faster, possibly, than the current speed of light. Seconds or eons pass (what is time at this point?), the first day. (See what I did there?) Eventually it expands enough that subatomic particles , the first matter, condense out of the energy, the second day. Further expansion and cooling, and atoms form and after many more billions of years gravitational forces pull them into stars and planets, and 13 (or so) billion years after the big asplosion a little blue planet pops out some plants and some animals, and after a few mass extinctions some bald, tail-less apes invent writing and decide that they were created in the image of an omnipotent and omnipresent God.

The only reasonable explanation I can think of for something as (currently) obviously whack as the creation myth to be "the Word of God" is if God is actually very smart and knew that ancient people couldn't handle the truth -- quarks and muons would have been utterly meaningless to every last one of them, so he did a cute little metaphor. Or some dude was divinely inspired in a wordless manner, and this is what came out. Or some dude was shrooming in a cave with some papyrus and thought "Hebrew" was a cool word. You know, whatever.

Also Genesis was written by a man. You know, bald, tail-less ape with a ding-a-ling. If the dominant group has to say that a vengeful god put them in charge to keep them dominant, they'll do it. Who's going to question divine inspiration?

I hope my future posts are shorter because I have E&M homework to get going on.

Some recommended reading (translation: great fiction that addresses religion!)

• His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, in that order.
  
• Contact by Carl Sagan, which is science-y but WONDERFUL, especially the end. My favorite book of all time! Also a movie which is OK but not as awesome.
  
• A multitude of other nonfiction/speculative books by Sagan, including The Demon-Haunted World and Dragons of Eden.
• Paradise Lost by Milton.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams -- not really about religion, but it makes some great satirical points. And I loves it so :)