Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Waves Paragraph Summary

All waves do the same thing, transfer energy from one place to another, but there are two types of waves, mechanical and electromagnetic. All waves that need a medium to move through are called mechanical waves. These include sound waves, ocean waves and seismic wave. In mechanical waves, the medium may move but will return to its original position. Waves that need a medium to travel through cannot through travel a vacuum such as space, because they have nothing to move through. These waves work by moving energy from particle to particle, until they reach their destination. Electromagnetic waves, however, such as light, x-rays, and radio waves, do not need a medium to travel through, and can travel through empty space. That is why the sun's rays are able to travel to earth. Although these 2 types of waves are different, they can be measured in many of the same ways. The first type is a transverse wave, which are waves that carry energy by moving at right angles to the direction of the energy flow. Ocean waves, and most electromagnetic waves are have a transverse wave pattern. The highest point of a transverse wave is the crest, while the lowest point is called the trough. The distance between the middle of the wave and the crest is called the amplitude, which is used to measure how much energy the wave has, the larger the amplitude, the more energy the wave is carrying. To find a wave's wavelength, you either measure the distance between two adjacent crests, or to adjacent troughs. Another way of measuring transverse waves is by their frequency, which is the number of waves that pass a certain point in one second, and is usually measured in hertz. The other type of measuring waves is compressional waves, which move my displacing matter back and forth in the direction of the energy flow. Sound travels in this type of wave, by preforming a series of compressions that travel through the air.


Transverse Waves



Compressional Waves



Different Frequencies

The Behavior of Light

22.1 Shadows and Reflections

1. What evidence do you have that light travels in a straight line?

First of all, we can see that the shadow of an object is always in the opposite direction the light is coming from, and always continues with the light in a straight line. As well, light doesn’t bend around corners or stuff.

2.

3. When light is reflected in a mirror, what is special about the angle of the incident and reflected rays?

Their angles to the mirror are the same.

4. Where is the image when you look at something in a mirror?

It appears to be behind the mirror, because of the way light reflects off the mirrior

5. Light travels in straight lines. If you hide just around a corner so that you can’t see your friends, can they see you?

No, as long as you cannot see your friends, they cannot see you because light travels in straight lines, and if you are behind a wall, it will be blocked.

22.1 Reflections by Different Surfaces

1. What can you see in a completely dark room?

Nothing, because there is no light to reflect off anything

2. If you place a lamp in this dark room as a light source, explain how you now see: a) the lamp b) a piece of paper

a) You can see the lamp because it is a source of light, and produces its own light b) there is now a light source that can provide light to reflect off the paper so you can see it

3. What types of mirror could you sue for make-up or shaving? What would be the advantages of each type?

For shaving you might want to use a concave mirror, and the advantage here is that it will give you a magnified image so you can see If you missed anything, and for make-up you could use a convex mirror, and the advantage of that would be you able to see your whole face.

4. If a driver has one convex and one plane rear-view mirror, how would the images in each appear different?

The image in the plane mirror would appear unaltered, while the image in the convex mirror would appear smaller than normal

5. Why could you not use a concave mirror as a rear-view mirror?

Concave mirrors would show you anything that far off it would be smaller and upside down

6. List as many different uses as you can for plane, convex and concave mirrors

Plane: on dresser – rear-view – full size (one in stores)

Convex: rear-view – make-up – stores

Concave: Shaving – Medical - dental

Friday, April 16, 2010

Three experiments showing how your pinhole camera works

Experiment 1
(a) It is up side down
(b) Very light color, as far as I can tell
(c) Not the same size

Experiment 2
(a) The close the pinhole camera the larger the image, and the farther the smaller the image
(b) The farther the pinhole camera the more clear the image is

Experiment 3
When there are two pinholes, there are two images

Experiment 4
(a) Brighter
(b) Fuzzier
(c) Bigger

Experiment 5
We put the lenses on the outside of the box, but in general the lenses were to help make the image more clear, because they can focus the light and make it clearer.

Experiment 6
1. The window will show because the light of the sun make it stand out in a dark room
2. We sat someone in front of the window, but we could only make out their silhouette
3. Lenses helped focus the light, the closer the lens, the more focused the images, but the smaller, while the farther the lens the bigger the images, but the fuzzier

Questions
1. The inside of the camera needed to be black to absorb the light
2. We did not use a light shield, but the light shield would be for keeping unwanted light out, and from keeping the light inside from leaving (as far as I understand).
3. The lens can focus the light so that it is in a beam, and not all over the place, giving a clearer image.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

What Have You Learned About Your Taste, Smell and How Your Skin Feels

This unit we have been talking about the senses and how they work, mainly taste, smell and touch or feel.

Taste: Your tongue is the muscle you use to taste foods. The tongue can taste anything anywhere, and the myth about you being able to taste certain flavors on certain parts of your tongue was fake, and there is not tongue map. Foods have chemicals in them that are absorbed by your taste buds, which are little "bumps" all over your tongue that absorb the taste chemicals, and send a message to your brain, telling you what the flavor is, either sweet, sour, bitter, salty or (according to the brainpop video) umami.

Smell: Your nose is what is used to smell, and when you smell something, what happens is particles of the thing are going up into your nose, where you have hairs called cilia, that have chemical receptors. When a molecule hits a hair, it sends a message or signal to something called your olfactory bulb, which is an extension of the brain that detects different odors

Feel:The last one is feel or touch. Our skin can detect pressure, temperature and pain. To feel these things, we have nerves under our skin that can sense the different things. These nerves are called dermis and they send the different sensations to your spinal cord, which forwards it on to your brain. The more nerve endings there are in a certain body part, the more sensitive it is. Mechanoreceptors are what let you feel pressure (including pain) and vibration, as well as thermoreceptors, which allow you to feel temperature.

How Can You Imrpove Your MYP Grade Next Term

Even though I got a 7 MYP Grade this term, there is still room to improve other aspects of my learning, and my total was a 34 so that means I could still improve. I think for next term, I would like to organize my work a bit better, because I ended up doing a lot of the work last minute, and so it didn't always come out to the best of my ability. Also, I would like to focus on actually bringing the stuff with me to school, because it occurred a few times where I had done the work, but forgot to bring it, and handing it in late would give a bad mark. Also, I would like to try to improve my focus in class, and remember to always write down agendas.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The Tongue Experiment

I sort of agree with Dr. Edward, but sort of disagree. First of all I found that the parts were not as definite as they were drawn. Second of all, I found that you could taste anything anywhere faintly, but the places the tastes were most flavorful were the parts mapped out. So I sort of agree and disagree at the same time.