Physics Reflective Writing Essay

Star Identification
I spent the most time looking for the information on the star identification section. I selected the constellation that was actually on the Australian flag, the Southern Cross or Crux. I honestly had never really seen the Australian flag before. And truly, I had not really stopped to look at a flag and think that those foreign stars might be an actual constellation or that they would mean something so significantly to another culture on the other side of the world. As I searched the net, I learned that the Southern Cross is an iconic land mark for that part of the sky. It would be similar to us having a north star or the big dipper on a flag. I had to search out quite a few different websites to find all five of the required questions for each star. The most difficult was tracking down the stars luminosity. I found the least amount of information on Epsilon Cru, but it is still such a significant part of the Crux, I was surprised. The other factor that really got me thinking was just how far away these stars are and just how long it takes the light to travel through the vacuum of space to reach our view. Delta Cru is 360 light years away, well that doesnt sound so far, but the light given off by Delta Cru was given off 360 years ago. That light was given off in the year 1653. It gets me thinking, how many stars that we see at night may be gone and were just seeing the light that was radiated hundreds of years ago.

Equation Analysis
Something that I found interesting about the Equation Analysis portion, was the amount of people trying to prove E = mc2 wrong on the internet. Now saying that out loud after it struck me as odd, doesnt actually sound that strange. The internet is full of self-proclaimed geniuses who literally are attempting to out think Albert Einstein. Once I did the math for the question 4: Analyze the statement: if it is possible to change mass into energy a little bit of mass could produce a lot of energy. Is it true or not? I really realized just how a little bit of mass can have a whole lot of energy.

Learning about a Law of Physics

I chose Newtons 3rd law of Motion for this section. Whenever one object exerts a force on a second object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite force on the first. as stated by Paul Hewitt. I remember in my 7th grade science class how this was discussed and most of the ideas surrounding Newtons laws made total sense. It wasnt until this course, did I realize some of the more basic ideas. I understood that an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by another force. It made sense that if a rocket propelled something out the back that it would go in the opposite direction, or that the force would be equal and opposite. But I never thought about the simple idea of a vase on a table was exerting the same force that the table was on the vase, but put in simply, the table is holding the vase up, so the table is pushing back on it. Nor did I ever think that a rock would be pulled down by the Earth with just as much force as the Earth is pulled up by the rock. I know that sounds silly, but sometimes the simple is just overlooked.

Fermis Paradox
I really enjoyed the last section on the project about Fermis Paradox, however, I honestly had to look up what the actual definition of a paradox is. I have heard the term in so many circumstances, but put in this context, it had seemed to just lose its meaning. The possibility of life outside of our planet, somewhere out in the far reaches of the galaxy has always intrigued me. I suppose as a child, I had wondered the same thing as Fermi, with all the space in space, how could something, somewhere not exist? The probability is just too high for no other life to form anywhere. But the fact remains that we have yet to find any scientific proof on this existence. I came to some conclusions with the aid of pop cultures classic influence as well as my own contemplation. My four possible solutions to the paradox are: 1. Maybe they are out there and they are avoiding us due to a lack of interest. It could be quite possible that life exists and they have noticed us, but they have better things to do. They may have seen the way human life exists here on Earth and the way we have treated our planet with the landfills we dump our waste in, the number of extinct and endangered species caused by our hand, the habitats that we have overharvested. Maybe we are viewed as a danger to their existence, so theyre avoiding us. 2. Life can be difficult to begin and can take a very long time to evolve, so were the only ones here in the universe. The earliest life on Earth that we have found to exist was at least 3.5 billion years ago. It is theorized that life needed just the right conditions to begin, such as the amino acids that needed a first jump start by lightning or some other source. Maybe those combinations just dont exist elsewhere. Or maybe they do but they are still in a Precambrian

slime stage only existing as cyanobacteria. It was a bit of a process for us to get to this point, maybe they just need time to cook? 3. They exist and are too far away to be found. They could very well be on the other side of the universe, billions of light-years away and we just havent walked far enough down our sidewalks to meet the neighbors yet. Or maybe they have something preventing them from reaching out to investigate us, being so far apart, we could simultaneously exist and just not know it yet. 4. They are here and we are living in a zoo type setting unknowingly. Maybe they do exist, maybe they found us, and maybe theyre here on Earth raising us in a nice little zoo type setting, cultivating us or even just watching us. Maybe were the ones on the insi de of the glass, and were just not looking out. Many films have taken this idea and run with it to the negative enslaved human race idea. The X-Files movie that came out several years back or the Transformers movie had this concept, while some of the human race were aware of the control but kept the illusion going. They could be here just watching us in our busy little lives, while eating popcorn and cotton candy while holding a little red balloon and tugging on their parents shoulder saying look how silly they are daddy.

I really enjoyed this class throughout the semester, it was quite a bit of work, but looking back, this physics class was really interesting and sparked quite a bit of thought for me.