HW 2

docx

School

New York University *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

101

Subject

Astronomy

Date

Dec 6, 2023

Type

docx

Pages

Uploaded by PrivateValor12642

2. Describe the four fundamental forces of nature 1. Gravity: Objects with mass interact with other objects through gravity. Einstein says that large massive objects have enough gravity to shape the fabric of spacetime, affecting how light travels through space and how time is experienced. Gravity holds masses together on a large scale, which keeps planets in orbit, stars together, and us on the ground. Gravity declines with distance and increases proportionally with mass. Weakest of the four forces, but dominates the macroscopic universe. 2. Electromagnetism: Works on a smaller scale than gravity–holds electrons and the nuclei in atoms, holds atoms, molecules together. Allows for life and is the result of acceleration of different charged particles interacting. Both electrical and magnetic forces. Governs electric and magnetic fields, including light. 3. Weak: Works on an incredibly small scale only within the nuclei of an atom–10 -18 m. Responsible for nuclear reactions. Responsible for the decay of subatomic particles and radiation. Weaker than electromagnetic force and strong nuclear force. 4. Strong: Binds protons and neutrons together. Binds together quarks, which make up the protons and neutrons. Strongest of the four forces, stronger than the electromagnetic force repelling protons. Works within the range of the nucleus, but on small scale. 5. Modern science uses the scientific method to verify new scientific ideas. List the steps. 1. Problem/hypothesis 2. Observations and procedures 3. Data 4. Data analysis 5. Testing

6. Possible modification of the hypothesis 6. According to a study done in 2017 on sexual selection, how has changing social technology affected students who seek mates? According to this study, social technology has been rapidly evolving at a rate quicker than humans are evolving. The technology we have now will be outdated in the next 10 years, maybe even 5 as we rapidly increase. 8. Do you believe in creation, evolution, intelligent design, or some other religion, if so state your beliefs. I was raised as a practicing Jew and was taught the story of the universe and our world being created in seven days, but as a lover of science I learned early on about evolution and the astrophysical beginnings of our universe. I first fell in love with astrophysics and science around the age of six, and read all about the Big Bang and the successive rapid expansion and evolution of our universe, galaxy, solar system, planet, and species. I believe in the most logical scientific explanation for all that we see, and that we do not see as well. I am a math major and would some day like to be a mathematician or a physicist, and thus I see much order in the world and our universe. Yes there is chaos, but the chaos still plays into our mathematical and physical rules and laws. 9. Spend about one hour surfing one of the following websites. Type one full page (20 lines minimum) telling me what you like or did not about the website/sites, that is, will you use the tutorial, take quizzes, and/or use the interactive figures to gain a better understanding? I looked on astronomy.com, learningastronomy.com, r/astronomy (reddit), Scientific American, viewspace.org, and Stellarium Web. Personally I found astronomy.com to be a bit

overwhelming and hard to navigate. There were many interesting articles which drew my eye, but I wasn't quite sure what to explore, and it left me wanting more. Learningastronomy.com was quite an old, disorganized website, so I didn't spend much time perusing it, but in the time I did spend on it, I came across pages with no information that haven't been updated in years. I explored r/astronomy on Reddit, as I frequent that subreddit often. I love the astronomy subreddit, since there are articles on new science news, discussions on various astronomical phenomena, amateur astronomers post their photos for other to enjoy and give suggestions on how to improve, there are countless resources for those just getting into astronomy and science, time lapses of the sky as the earth rotates, and much more. There are many other subreddits of the sort, such as r/physics, r/astrophysics where users post questions regarding theoretical physics, calculations, interesting consequences of findings, and such. Reddit is a great resource for community discussion and finding interesting articles, images, and other people who enjoy science. Scientific American is probably the best source for finding a wide variety of scientific articles and news in one concise place. I think both Reddit and SciAm are good jumping off points to find interesting topics to research further. I read an interesting article on SciAm about noctalgia (not nostalgia), which describes the pain associated with the loss of dark skies due to light pollution, which is something I relate to, since I've only been able to view the milky way galaxy in clear view from a dark sky location a handful of times. I think being able to witness and observe the actual bands of our galaxy from a place devoid of light pollution is an incredibly moving and transformative experience that everyone should get to witness ideally more than

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

once. When I talk about a dark sky, I mean classes 1-4 on the Bortle dark sky scale. I think the best website for digital interactive modules was ViewSpace, as there are modules for how we detected the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy by observing the orbits of nearby stars, light spectrography, interacting galaxies, star death, star formation, the

electromagnetic spectrum, and much more. ViewSpace is an excellent resource for playing around with parameters to understand physical phenomena, how various aspects of our universe work and interact, and to get a more visual understanding of physical concepts. Finally, I looked at Stellarium Web, which is a star explorer, which allows one to explore the sky and click on various stars and planets to learn more about the categorized objects. It gives the magnitude, distance, spectral type, coordinates in azimuth and altitude, and takes you to the Wikipedia page of the object (if there is one) to further research it.

HW 2

Related Documents