Astronomical Physics The Maths Behind Astronomy

1. Over the centuries that humans have viewed the night sky with telescopes, apparent movement of stars relative to other stars has been seen. The term stellar ___ is given to this apparent movement of nearby stars with respect to stars further away due to a shift in the location of the observer. What word should fill the blank? Equinox Parallax Vortex Snorlax 2. The luminosity of the sun can be quantified and an expression can be derived to explain this critically important physical phenomenon. The luminosity of the sun is the amount of energy radiated by the sun in a given period of time. Thus the luminosity of the sun is important to life on Earth as nearly all living systems require energy which originally comes from the sun. Which of the following instruments can be used to detect luminosity? Bolometer Pluviometer Manometer Thermometer 3. A lot of the maths behind astronomy tends to be in the form of ratios. One example is determining the ratio of the luminosity of a specific star when compared to the luminosity of our sun. Out of the following options which contains BOTH the factors necessary to work out such a ratio of luminosity? Force & Radius Radius & Temperature Temperature & Velocity Velocity & Force 4. The luminosity of a star can in some instances be related to its mass. This is generally only the case during a certain period in the life of a star. At what point in the evolution of a star is the star's luminosity approximately the mass of the star raised to the power 3.9? Red Giant Main Sequence White Dwarf Supergiant 5. The luminosity of a star can be determined by playing around with the magnitude of the star. However, one can run into a little bit of trouble as to what the magnitude of a star actually is. When you look into the night sky and observe a star are you registering its apparent magnitude or its absolute magnitude? *See hint*

Answer:

(One word - Apparent or Absolute)

6. Astrophysics is well known as being the science that hasn't fully embraced the SI system of scientific units. This could possibly be justified because everything that can be quantified is done so on such a massive scale that isn't seen in any other science! An example is the light year, but is this a unit of time or distance? *See hint*

Answer:

(One Word - Time or Distance)

7. Thanks to two scientists of the night sky there exists a diagram which shows the period in stellar evolution that a star should be at due to their luminosity and temperature. What is the name of this diagram? P-Z Diagram T-D Diagram S-E Diagram H-R Diagram 8. Perhaps more famous due to the telescope named after him, this individual made great steps forward in determining what was happening to the size of our Universe. Is our Universe expanding, is it contracting or is it staying exactly the same? Well such questions can be answered in part due to this scientist's work. Who is this scientist who came up with the law stating that the quotient, (recessional velocity of a galaxy away from Earth) / (distance from Earth to galaxy), is amazingly a constant? Brahe Hubble Kepler Newton 9. Despite the concept of "dark matter" being a relatively new one, it could be suggested that the beginning of the road which ends at this mystical hypothesis started with Johannes Kepler. It was he who, through trial and improvement, came up with the equation 'p^2 = a^3' which was later modified by Isaac Newton. By taking Newton's modification of Kepler's Third Law to its logical conclusion, what should happen to the rotational (orbital) velocities of stars about the galactic centre as you increase the distance from the star to the galactic centre? The rotational velocity should increase The rotational velocity should decrease The rotational velocity should stay the same OK, now this is making my head hurt! 10. Part of the fascination of the cosmos is in the sense of the unknown. Is there alien life in the far reaches of the Universe? Is the Universe in a constant cycle of Big Bangs and Big Crunches? Besides such questions that interest the public there are astronomical bodies that never fail to fascinate. Which of the following bodies has a singularity and a Schwarzschild radius that corresponds to its event horizon? Oort Cloud Black Hole Spiral Galaxy Comet

ANSWERS:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Parallax. Bolometer. Radius & Temperature. Main Sequence. Apparent & Apparent magnitude. Distance. H-R Diagram. Hubble The rotational velocity should decrease. Black Hole

Dark Physics
1. There is nothing, truly nothing. No matter or energy, neither time nor space. And then, in an instant, there is a flood of something - exploding, expanding, taking on shape and structure, generating the very laws of the universe. Had there only been someone there to hear, what they might have called it? Answer: (Three Words)

2. The chaos coalesces. Gravitational attraction brings tiny bits of matter together. But there are points at which there is neither matter nor electromagnetic radiation. Still, a strange quantum-mechanical potential lurks there. Which of these could it be?

Anti-matter implosion Little bangs Zero point energy Planck fluctuations 3. On a tiny blue planet orbiting a seething gaseous ball, somewhat intelligent life notices a baffling phenomenon. When they take an empty box and punch a hole in it, radiation streams out from the black interior of the empty box. What name is given to this radiation? Hubble bodies Neutralino flux Quantum vacuum fields Black Body Radiation 4. Other denizens of the small blue planet occupy their time with attempting to suck every last molecule out of closed containers to produce a perfect vacuum. Which of the following are examples of a truly perfect vacuum? Intergalactic space Both The best artificial human vacuum Neither 5. Stars form. Stars age. And as the larger stars age, they exhaust their fuel until finally one force predominates: gravity. These stars collapse on themselves, becoming ever smaller until their density is so high, their gravitational force so great,

that nothing, not even electromagnetic radiation, can escape their grasp. When the inhabitants of our small planet conceive of these holes in the sky, what do they come to be called?

Answer:

(Two words)

6. The creatures of the little blue planet have fertile imaginations. They can, for instance, imagine an infinity of nothing, a place with infinite volume where there is neither matter nor energy. And having imagined such an absolutely desolate place, what temperature do they assign to it? 0 degrees Celsius - 100 degrees Celsius 0 degrees Fahrenheit Absolute zero 7. As the beings of the small planet turn their attention to things ever smaller and more insubstantial, they cannot but succumb to the temptation to make analogies between the behavior of the larger things they can see and the smaller things they cannot. Thus, they come to believe that just as ocean waves are oscillations in a sea of liquid water, so light must oscillate in its own vast sea of "luminiferous ether". Which scientist showed that light and other electromagnetic waves could propagate in nothing? Einstein Lorentz Planck Maxwell 8. Peering through their telescopes into the void, observers on our little blue world have watched the galaxies in their dance and concluded that 96% of the universe's mass is invisible. So now, in Cleveland, England, at the bottom of Europe's deepest mine, in a deep mine in Minnesota, and in a tunnel under Stanford University, detectors sit. They wait for a neutralino, for a WIMP, for a Nobel Prize. What are they hoping to detect? Black mass Dark matter Vacuous deposits Microquarks 9. As the power of their telescopes increases, the inventive folk of the little blue speck in the void notice that not only do the galaxies seem to be spreading out and moving away from one another but that the galaxies farthest away seem to be moving away faster. One possible explanation for this is that matter carries only 1/3 of the mass of the universe while a type of energy carries the rest. Since this energy is at present undetectable, what has it been called? Black emissions Dark energy Ghostly neutrinos Dormant mesons 10. The scientists inhabiting the little blue planet conclude that their universe must suffer one of three fates: implosion (The Big Crunch), infinite expansion in a plane or infinite hyperbolic expansion. The value of a certain constant, they theorize, will determine the universe's fate. What has this crucial constant been named?

Heidelberg's number The gravimetric radius Planck's variable The cosmological constant

ANSWERS:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
The Big Bang Theory. Zero point energy. Black Body Radiation Neither. Black holes Absolute zero Einstein. Dark matter Dark energy. The cosmological constant.

Electromagnetic Spectrum and Optics

Tools of the Laser Optics Lab

1. Before you enter the laser lab, there's one tool you need with you: safety goggles for eye protection. In this lab, however, there's a whole rack of them to choose from! What information must you consider when choosing your laser safety goggles? The types of chemicals in use The wavelength of the laser in use Whether the laser is pulsed or continuous wave (at the same power) Whether the lab receives direct sunlight 2. Now that you've got the right safety equipment, let's head into the lab! The laser and its optics are set up on a special "optical table"; a good one can cost thousands of dollars! The thick tabletop is filled with foam and supported by an internal honeycomb of steel; it sits on pneumatic legs filled with compressed air. Why is all this necessary? To support the laser's enormous weight To keep the laser at a constant temperature To shield the rest of the lab from harmful radiation To keep the laser system from shaking or vibrating 3. The optical table may be covered with dozens -- or hundreds! -- of optics tools, but it all leads back to the laser itself. There are many types of lasers, each relying on a slightly different principle; one major division is between continuous-wave lasers and pulsed lasers. Which of these is an advantage of pulsed lasers? Pulsed lasers are always faster to "turn on" than continuous-wave lasers. Pulsed lasers can produce higher peak powers than continuous-wave lasers. Pulsed lasers produce better-polarized laser beams than continuous-wave lasers.

Pulsed lasers heat up quickly, making the lab more comfortable. 4. In the popular imagination, laser beams are perfectly straight lines, but in truth this is only an approximation: laser beams always have a more complicated shape. The simplest (and thus most widely used) of these shapes is a Gaussian beam, which can be described by only two parameters: the laser wavelength and the beam waist. Which of these defines the "waist" of a Gaussian beam? The distance traveled by the beam before it strikes the first lens The number of photons in a cubic centimeter of beam The diameter of the beams cross section at its widest point The diameter of the beams cross section at its narrowest point 5. Okay, it looks like we're ready to start experimenting! Let's turn on the laser and -- wait a minute. This is an infrared laser, outside the spectrum of light that humans can see. Which of these tools will be most useful in determining the location and size of the beam? A dichroic filter that reduces the beam to its visible components No tool is necessary -- the wavelength will change over distance A nonlinear optical crystal that converts the beam to a different wavelength A "viewing card" that responds to infrared light by fluorescing at a visible wavelength 6. We've got our laser beam and we've got a way to see it, but the first thing we see is a problem: the beam has a very large diameter where we need it to have a very small one. Which tool is best for changing the shape of the beam? A half-wave plate A plane mirror A lens A beamsplitter 7. Part of the challenge of laser optics is getting the laser beam exactly where you want it. Let's say, for example, that you want to pass the laser beam through some helium gas. The beam travels across the table at a height of 1 centimeter, but the target is on a large and complicated mount -- so the gas is 10 centimeters above the table. How will you change the height of the beam? With a pellicle beamsplitter With a spherical integrator With a pair of plane mirrors With an optical ramp 8. Now that we can control the beam's shape and location, it's time to start thinking about its other properties. For example, several useful tools -- like quarter-wave plates -- allow us to change the beam's polarization. But what IS the polarization of a moving photon? The orientation of its electric and magnetic fields The direction in which it is moving Its energy density The orientation of its strong and weak fields 9. We've got a pretty good little laser system set up here, but some experiments just won't work with a single laser beam. For example, if you want to detect gravitational waves, you'll need to find some way of dividing the beam in two -- while preserving its important properties. Which of these tools should you use?

A beamsplitter A fiber amplifier A half-wave plate An attenuator 10. For some experiments, the classic setup -- an optical table supporting a "forest" of elements -- just won't work. It's hard to find a table big enough (or a beam in a straight enough line) to check the state of your photons after they've traveled, say, a mile! One solution is to send your laser beam through a fiber-optic cable. How does such a cable contain the entire beam? Total external refraction Polarization transfer Snell's Law Total internal reflection

ANSWERS:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. The wavelength of the laser in use. To keep the laser system from shaking or vibrating. Pulsed lasers can produce higher peak powers than continuous-wave lasers. The diameter of the beams cross section at its narrowest point . A "viewing card" that responds to infrared light by fluorescing at a visible wavelength. A lens. With a pair of plane mirrors. The orientation of its electric and magnetic fields. A beamsplitter. Total internal reflection.

Electrifying Physics!
1. Current flows in a circuit due to the flow of electrons. If current flows past a point for a period of time the total charge which had flowed can be found by multiplying current by time. In what units would this charge be expressed in?

Farads Ohms Teslas Coulombs 2. Power and energy are often referred to in physics. There are several types of energy and therefore several different calculations to find a value for energy. However, how can electrical energy be calculated? Current x voltage (Current x voltage) /time Current x voltage x time Current /(voltage x time)

3. Ohm's law states that the current flowing between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points. Some components of a circuit obey Ohm's law such as a passive resistor. Will a filament bulb obey Ohm's law? Yes No 4. A diode only allows current to flow one way in a circuit. Due to the sensitivity of a diode it must be protected by a resistor and so current stays constant until about +0.7V, where current flow increases rapidly. However, if the voltage is reversed and is raised to a high enough value, current will flow in the opposite direction. What is this value known as? The breakdown point The terminal point The threshold voltage The minimum opposite flow 5. In a parallel circuit we are told that current is the "sum" and voltage is the "same". In a series circuit this is the exact opposite. Who's law states that the current entering and leaving a closed series circuit are equal? Kirchhoff's 1st law Ampere's 1st law Kirchhoff's 2nd law Ampere's 2nd law 6. In a series circuit, when two or more resistors are connected the circuit can be known as a potential divider as the total potential difference is divided between the resistors. Will a 100 Ohm resistor have a larger potential difference across it than a 10 Ohm resistor? Yes No 7. We can measure the voltage across a component using a voltmeter. The potential difference across a battery in an open circuit is greater than the total potential difference across the components (i.e. external to the battery). This is due to the "internal resistance" of the battery. What is the difference between these two potential difference readings known as? Missing volts Hypothetical volts Phantom volts Lost volts 8. Resistance is directly proportional to the length of wire it flows through and is inversely proportional to the area of the wire it flows through. The resistivity of the material the current is flowing through also determines resistance. Which letter of the Greek alphabet is used to represent resistivity? Chi Eta Rho

Xi 9. We use electricity from the mains supply everyday. The root mean squared voltage of the mains supply is used as an average as otherwise the voltages would cancel out (as the mains is AC). If we are provided with the peak voltage, how would we find the root mean squared voltage? Peak voltage x 2 Peak voltage/square root of 2 Peak voltage/2 Peak voltage x square root of 2 10. Cathode Ray Oscilloscopes (CRO) can be used to show whether a supply is AC or DC, if it has high or low frequency and if the signal is varying or not. What could we say about a source that shows a straight horizontal line above the centre of the CRO screen? +DC, time base off, signal varying +DC, time base on, signal constant AC, time base off, signal varying AC, time base on, signal constant

ANSWERS:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Coulombs Current x voltage x time. No The breakdown point. Kirchhoff's 1st law. Yes Lost volts Rho Peak voltage/square root of 2. +DC, time base on, signal constant

Light My Way
1. Johannes Kepler was better known as a mathematician and astronomer. However, in 1604 he did something different. What was it? He discovered that light contains heat. He invented the lacemaker's condenser. He published a book about how light travels. He discovered the principles behind the holograph.

2. What is an umbra?

They are tubes that gases such as neon are sealed in to create lighting. A hat used in South America for shading farmers from the sun.

It is the middle of a shadow during solar eclipse. An area in the eye that perceives color. 3. Willebrord Snell solved a problem in 1621. His solution became as 'Snell's Law'. In basic, what is this law? A dependable way of predicting how far light will bend. E=mc2 For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Mirrors do not disperse color, so they are better for use in telescopes than multiple lenses. 4. What is the 'Brockenspekter'? It is the comparison of light to sound. It's a long shadow seperated from an object, and once thought to be ghostly. A shadow cast on a cloud and surrounded by colored rings. It is the shiny color put off by the back of a compact disc. 5. What is white light made from? very small water droplets a mixture of many other light colors just that, white light intense blue light 6. Like sound, light travels in waves. True False 7. Why is ultraviolet (UV) light able to penetrate and burn skin? UV has longer wavelengths than visible light. UV is a form of radioactivity released by atomic nuclei. UV is the same thing as infrared. UV has more energy than visible light. 8. What is light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation? solar energy cosmic rays plasma a laser 9. What is light subtraction?

It is shutting out light beams to create a darkened void. It is how things that do not give off light are colored. It is the process of subtraction without borrowing from the next number grouping. It is using the color spectrum to see if stars are moving away from Earth. 10. Light must have something to travel through. When traveling through space, it goes through a substance called 'luminiferous ether'. True False

ANSWERS:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. He published a book about how light travels.. It is the middle of a shadow during solar eclipse.. A dependable way of predicting how far light will bend. A shadow cast on a cloud and surrounded by colored rings.. a mixture of many other light colors True UV has more energy than visible light.. a laser. It is how things that do not give off light are colored.. False

The Colours of Optics

1. What are the subtractive colours of the optics colour wheel? Purple, green, and orange Blue, red, and yellow Cyan, magenta, and green Cyan, magenta, and yellow 2. What are the additive colours of the optics colour wheel? Red, yellow, blue Purple, green, blue Cyan, magenta, yellow Red, green, blue 3. If you shine white light through a red filter, then a blue filter, what colour of light will you end up with? Blue Purple Black

Red 4. If you shine white light through a yellow filter followed by a green filter, what colour of light will you end up with? Yellow Green Blue Black 5. What colour of light is obtained by mixing equal parts of magenta and green light? White Black Brown Blue 6. Of the two cells that make up your retina, the rods and the cones (both named for their shape), which senses colour? Rods Neither, your brain senses the colour Neither, the iris senses the colour Cones 7. On a TV screen, the pixels are 1/3 red, 1/3 blue, and 1/3 green. If you want to have yellow light, which parts of the pixel have to glow more brightly than the others? All three parts The red and blue parts. The green and blue parts The red and the green parts 8. Why does a green cucumber appear green? It gives off green particles, which enter your eyes. Green particles are attracted to it. It absorbs only green, and all the other coloured light is repelled from it. It absorbs all the colours except for green, so you only see green

9. A red tomato appears to be which colour under blue light? Blue Black Red

Purple 10. What colour do you get when you add all of the additive colours together? White Brown Black Grey

ANSWERS:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Cyan, magenta, and yellow Red, green, blue Black Green. White. Cones. The red and the green parts. It absorbs all the colours except for green, so you only see green.. Black. White.

Light
1. A ray of white light strikes a rectangular glass block normally. How many rays of light, and what colour, emerge from the block? Impossible to say without knowing the composition of the polychromatic ray of light Three rays of red, blue and green light respectively One ray of white light Seven rays of light (VIBGYOR) 2. A ray of light strikes a plane mirror and the angle of reflection is noted. The plane mirror is then rotated through an angle of 30 degrees, such that there is an increase in the angle of reflection. If the initial angle of reflection was 15 degrees, what will be the new angle of reflection, after rotation? 60 degrees 30 degrees 45 degrees 75 degrees 3. Which of the following prisms would be suitable for use in a periscope? An isosceles prism

A prism with the following angles: 90 degrees, 42 degrees and 48 degrees An equilateral prism An isosceles right angled prism 4. A specific mass of pure water is frozen to form completely transparent ice, in the shape of a lens. When forced underwater, the lens diverges light. What is the shape of the lens? Convex lens Cylindrical lens Concave lens Convexo-concave lens 5. Two monochromatic rays of light, one ray violet and the other red, travel from a vacuum into air. Their speeds change as a result. What is the ratio of the speed of the violet ray to the speed of the red ray? 1.5 : 1 2:1 1:1 3:1 6. Which of the following mirrors is most suitable for using as a reflector in car headlights? Concave mirror Parabolic mirror Convex mirror Plane mirror 7. A person suffering from the ophthalmic disorder myopia is wearing spectacles with concave lenses. The transparent concave lenses are yellow in colour. This person looks at a picture of a yellow circle, a green square and a red triangle set against a blue background. How does the picture appear to the person? The circle, square and triangle look the same colour they are, but they look as though they are set against a black background Everything except for the circle looks black Everything looks yellow. Everything looks the same colour it is 8. [1/f= 1/v - 1/u] is the mirror formula, which enables us to evaluate the focal length of a concave mirror. True False

9. A camera is focused on a distant object. The distance between the lens and the photographic film is equal to 'f'. The camera must now focus on a nearby object. What will be the new distance between the photographic film and the lens? Exactly half of 'f' Less than 'f' More than 'f' Equal to 'f' (no change) 10. An object is placed 10cm away from the lens of a camera. The image formed is the same size as the object. What is the focal length of the lens of the camera? 10 cm Impossible to say 20 cm 5 cm

ANSWERS:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
One ray of white light. 75 degrees. An isosceles right angled prism. Convex lens. 1 : 1. Parabolic mirror. The circle, square and triangle look the same colour they are, but they look as though they are set against a black background. False More than 'f' 5 cm.