Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
Students have a weekly online reading assignment (hosted by SurveyMonkey.com), where they answer questions based on reading their textbook, material covered in previous lectures, opinion questions, and/or asking (anonymous) questions or making (anonymous) comments. Full credit is given for completing the online reading assignment before next week's lecture, regardless if whether their answers are correct/incorrect. Selected results/questions/comments are addressed by the instructor at the start of the following lecture.
The following questions were asked on reading textbook chapters and previewing presentations on quantum leaps, and the sun's outer layers.
Selected/edited responses are given below.
Describe something you found interesting from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally interesting for you.
"That an atom will only absorb a photon only if that photon has the correct amount of energy."
"I liked how the neon signs from around San Luis Obispo were connected to this class and the gas atoms and electrons inside."
"I found the quick bit on the gases interacting with heat to be interesting because they are all referred to as 'neon' signs, and it got me thinking if that's because neon was the only gas they had usage of when first inventing that type of signage."
"Reading about the sun's heat and its sunspots. I thought it was interesting that the sunspots have intense magnetic fields."
"I thought that how the suns outer most layer is called the 'corona' meaning 'crown' was interesting, it's like the sun is royalty."
"The fact that every square millimeter of the sun is radiating a temperature of 5,800 K, is such an astonishing fact and incredible to think about. It's certainly hotter than any temperature you could come CLOSE to on Earth, on the surface at least."
"Something I found super-interesting about the presentation slides was how granules on the sun are actually due to convection whereas sunspots are due to magnetic poles."
"To me, looking at how the sun appeared to have wings was extremely interesting just because it looked so artistic and pretty!"
Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"The quantum leaps was a bit confusing for me, not too bad but I just need some clarification because I am not fully remembering how it works!"
"What was confusing to me was the permitted orbits of atoms. This was confusing because the book did not word the descriptions very clearly."
"It is hard to keep straight the electron rule and the photon rule and know which definition is which."
"I kind of got the chromosphere and the photosphere mixed up a couple of times since they're both on the surface of the sun and they sound a little alike."
"I just don't know how granules form, because I just have no idea how they're created."
"The granules were kinda confusing but the analogies with the lava lamp and miso soup helped."
"The 'Winged sun of Thebes' slide confused me because the fire-spitting cobras wearing hats continually got mentioned and yet in either diagram I failed to identify them. Maybe if we point them out next class I'll see them better?"
An electron in an atom must emit a photon when it jumps from a __________ energy orbital to a __________ energy orbital.
lower; higher. ****** [6] higher; lower. ***************** [17] (Both of the above choices.) ** [2] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) [0]
An electron in an atom must absorb a photon when it jumps from a __________ energy orbital to a __________ energy orbital.
lower; higher. ******************* [19] higher; lower. ***** [5] (Both of the above choices.) * [1] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) [0]
The exterior of the sun, from inner to outermost layers, are the:
(Only correct responses shown.)
inner: photosphere [68%]
middle: chromosphere [64%]
outer: corona [68%]
State your preference regarding miso soup.
Strongly dislike. [0] Dislike. [0] Neutral. ********* [9] Like *** [3] Strongly like. ********* [9] (I don't know what miso soup is.) **** [4]
Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"Quantum mechanics are confusing as heck!"
"Why do sunspots follow an 11-year cycle, and how were these cycles calculated? I can imagine that sun observations have only existed for a few decades, so is there any chance these 11-year cycles change over time?" (Sunspots have been noted in naked-eye(!) observations from thousands of years ago; but reliable, safe projected images of sunspots have been recorded since the 1600s; so the 11-year cycle seems to be consistent at least for the past 400+ years, except for a exceptionally quiet, sunspot-free period during the second half of the 1600s.)
"We zap electrons to push them up an energy level, but what draws them back down so they can emit radiation? Do they always give radiation on their way back down?" (The negative charge electron attracted to the positive charge proton, so it will always want to "fall back down" to a smaller orbit around the proton, giving off energy (in the form of a photon) as it does so.)
"Does using a magnet on a cathode ray TV permanently damage it?" (It will magnetize the metal shadow mask "screen" behind the glass, unless a repairman "de-gausses" it to un-magnetize it. Some TVs and computer monitors have a built-in degaussing feature just in case their shadow masks get accidentally magnetized.)
"Do you know where the light come from when you see the northern lights in the sky?" (The aurora is caused by electrons streaming from the sun's solar wind are trapped by Earth's magnetic poles, where they'll collide with the atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere. These cause the atoms' electrons to jump up to higher orbitals, and when those electrons jump down to lower orbitals, photons (typically green) are emitted. So the Earth's upper atmosphere, especially near the north and south poles, behaves like a big neon sign.)
"In the presentation preview, you mentioned that if we haven't had miso soup to make sure we order it, which restaurant would you recommend?"
"MISO SOUP IS SO GOOD anyone who thinks otherwise has whack taste buds."
"Know of any good places to get miso soup around here?"
"Favorite type of swing dance?" (Both balboa and lindy hop.)
"I honestly always have no idea what to say when I get to this question--I always feel a small amount of pressure to either make a funny comment or ask a in-depth question that I don't have."
No comments:
Post a Comment