Semester project ePortfolio Reflective Essay Physics 1010

I would like to expand on my experience creating my physics 1010 semester project to help you understand how much progress Ive made in this physics class. I would like to start by helping you understand where I stood and my personal perception of physics prior to enrolling in physics 1010 at SLCC. When working on my Associates degree I had the choice to take Physics or Statistics. Physics scared me so badly that I took Statistics, only to find out years later that the field I had ultimately decided to go into is going to require me to take physics. I was hopeful that I would be able to comprehend some portion of the class. I will be perfectly honest, I have struggled with understanding some of the concepts that have been taught. Physics has some tricky concepts to understand. Just when I feel like a failure I will read one of the amazing quotes provided by my instructor, they have helped me get my head back in the game and keep trying one that I really liked during this project is one by Richard P. Feynman, What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does. After reading that, I then start to feel somewhat normal again and work harder to understand the difficult concept that I am struggling with to a degree that is adequate for my own personal desire of growth in the particular area of difficulty. In this project I seemed to struggle the most with the luminosity of the stars compared to the sun. I spent many hours trying to understand how to figure out luminosity. It is my hope that I was ultimately successful. I was able to come to a vague understanding of the general relationship with apparent magnitude and absolute visual magnitude. Eventually I was able to understand that I can compare magnitudes of stars to the sun and therefore compare their luminosities, as seen in my chart below:
Acrux Light Years from earth Approx. year light left star from 2013 Vmag. (m) Radius times sun 320 1693 0.77 9 Becrux 350 1663 1.25 8.4 Gacrux 88 1925 1.59 113 4.83 Sun 0.000016

The lower the (Vmag) number the greater the luminosity. The above chart was included in my project as a simple quick look table of the information about the stars that Id labeled in my project. You have the stars by name along the top row and as you go down the side you can easily compare each of the starts to each other and light years and luminosity can be compared with the sun.

There was also a great chart at the following web address which I copied into my writing below- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminosity
This chart shows the luminosity of stars based on their Vmag which is in my chart above. According to this chart the luminosity of Acrux and Becrux would be in the first magnitude equal in luminosity to Vega. Gacrux would be second magnitude or equivalent in luminosity to Denebola. And our sun would be in the fifth magnitude category equivalent in luminosity to the star Pleione. What I find most interesting about this is that these stars that are so much further away from our earth and look so much smaller in our sky are far brighter than our sun yet do not appear that way from our meager perception. It is important to understand when reading this chart that the first magnitude is twice as bright as the second which is twice as bright as the third which is twice as bright as the fourth and so on.
Range Grouping First Magnitude < 1.5 Vega Denebola Rastaban 0.03 2.14 2.79 Example VMag

econd magnitude 1.5 to 2.5 Third Magnitude 2.5 to 3.5

Fourth Magnitude 3.5 to 4.5 Sadalpheretz 3.96 Fifth Magnitude 4.5 to 5.5 Sixth Magnitude 5.5 to 6.5 Seventh Magnitude 6.5 to 7.5 Eighth Magnitude 7.5 to 8.5 Ninth Magnitude 8.5 to 9.5 Tenth Magnitude 9.5 to 10.5 Pleione 54 Piscium HD 40307 HD 113766 HD 149382 HIP 13044 5.05 5.88 7.17 7.56 8.94 9.98

My experience with this part of the project did increase my interest in learning about stars. I never really understood people who looked at stars before. Toward the end of my studying of this part of my project I decided that I am going to take some time to look at the stars now and teach my children to look at and enjoy the stars. I also have created a new goal for my family to start learning more about the stars in our skies. This assignment has helped me in my physiology class. In understanding how physics works it makes it easier to understand and comprehend what is happening in the nervous system of the human body as well as other cellular functions that are complicated and need more of an

explanation. For instance the concentration gradient of cells makes perfect sense when you think about the physics part of it. When you think about high energy automatically flowing to the lesser energy it makes perfect sense that concentrated ions would freely flow to the lesser concentrated area to reach equilibrium. There are actually several different cross overs with physics and physiology. The thermodynamics laws can be applied to cellular transport and made this much more interesting to learn about. It also makes physics feel more relevant to the type of learning I am currently doing and will be learning moving forward.

The equations in my semester project are explained as follows: 1. E=mc2 Energy = mass X the speed of light squared. This is Albert Einsteins Mass Energy Equivalence equation that was discovered in 1905. This equation only works when something is moving at a constant speed. This equation proves that the more energy that is stored in a particle, the greater the mass of that particle. 2. d=gt2/2

Distance an object falls when released from rest (no air resistance)= (acceleration of gravity at the Earths surface)(time the object has been falling)2/2. This is the equation for proving that two objects will fall at the same speed when you remove air resistance. Because air resistance is not part of this equation it is not a factor when determining the distance or time it takes an object to fall. 3. v=gt Velocity=(gravity)(time) This equation confirms that all objects regardless of weight fall with the same unchanging acceleration.
4. e = 1 - Tcold/Thot This is the efficiency equation for a heat engine. This equation shows that by theory it is possible to achieve 100% efficiency with a heat engine. However, in reality this is not possible.

I have really enjoyed learning and expanding my mind and my understanding of physics. Ive really appreciated learning more about how things in our universe operate through energy. My mind is expanded and it has created within me a greater desire to learn more.