Phys. Sci
Terms
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- Uniformitarianism
- The idea that the laws of nature do not change with time (aka "time symmetry")
- Occam's Razor
- The rule that where two or more explanations exist for the same physical phenomenon, we should choose the simplest.
- Relative Time
- The determination of the sequence in which events occurred, relative to each other.
- Original Horizontality
- Sedimentary rocks are deposited in horizontal layers.
- Superposition
- In a stack of sedimentary layers, the oldest layer will be on the bottom and the youngest on the top.
- Inclusions
- Solid materials enclosed w/in another solid are older than the rock that encloses them.
- Crosscutting Relationship
- Rocks are older than the feautres or rocks that crosscut them.
- Gneiss
- Metamorphic rock, similar makeup as granite.
- Quartzite
- Metamorphic composed of sand grains that have been welded tightly together, unlike sandstone where the sand grains rub off in your hand.
- Slate
- Metamorphosed shale. It still breaks into thin layers like shale, but the layers are much harder and much more durable.
- Granite
- Igneous plutonic rock made mostly of quartz along wi/ sodium and potassium-rich feldspar.
- Basalt
- An igneous volcanic rock that is composed of calcium-rich feldspar and other iron-rich minerals.
- Gabbro
- An igneous plutonic rock made of the same minerals as basalt, but, because the minerals cooled slowly underground, they are coarse-grained.
- Shale
- A sedimentary rock made up of fine particles of clay and mud.
- Sandstone
- A sedimentary rock made up mostly of grains of sand.
- Siltstone
- A sedimentary rock made up mostly of grains of silt.
- Continental Shields
- The oldest parts of the continents. They represent the roots of very ancient mountains, long since eroded away.
- Stable Platform
- An area of the continent where the old rocks of the shield have been covered by relatively flat-lying sedimentary rocks.
- Mountain Belts
- Regions of the continents where the rocks have been highly deformed by enormous forces. These belts usually lie along the edges of the continents.
- Continental Shelf
- Part of the continent that is under a shallow cover of water.
- Continental Slope
- The boundary between the continents and the ocean basins. It marks a distinct change in the composition of the rocks near Earth's surface.
- Oceanic Ridge
- Mountain ranges that are under the oceans. They form very long mountain chains that essentially encircle Earth.
- Rift Valley
- A valley bounded by faults or breaks in the crust of Earth. These valleys are formed as the plates of Earth pull apart.
- Crust
- The uppermost layer of the Earth. Composed of two parts: Granitic continental crust and basaltic oceanic crust.
- Mantle
- The middle layer of Earth. it is a thick layer made up of peridotite in the upper part and higher density rocks of peridotite composition in the lower part.
- Peridotite
- A rock made up mostly silicon, oxygen, iron, and magnesium that is denser than the basalt and granite that make up Earth's crust.
- Stony Chondrites
- Meteorites thought to represent the primitive material from which the planets were made.
- Stony Achondrites
- Meteorites thought to represent material from small planetary bodies that had differenciated into layers and then were broken up.
- Iron Meteorites
- Meteorites thought to represent the type of material found in earth's core.
- Core
- The deepest or central layer of Earth. It is composed mostly of iron.
- Seafloor Spreading
- The theory that the ocean floor grows on either side as the mid-ocean ridge moves apart. The rift created in this process is filled in with basalt as magma squeezes up into the fractures created by rifting.
- Ridge Push
- Helps move the Earth's plates. The ridge is high and has gravitational potential energy which is converted into kinetic energy as the plate moves.
- Slab Pull
- Helps move the tectonic plates. As an oceanic plate becomes old, cold, and dense, it sinks back into the mantle, pulling the rest of the plate along with it.
- Basal Drive
- May help the plates to move. As the asthenosphere flows along under a plate, it may help to pull the plate along like a conveyor belt.
- Mantle Reistance, Plate Collision, and Transform Fault Friction
- Forces that resist plate motion.
- Subduction
- What geologists call the process that occurs at the trenches where old oceanic lithosphere is sinking back into the mantle. The trench area is also called a "subduction zone" and as the plates sink, they are said to be subducting.
- Zone of Ablation
- The part of a glacial system where melting of snow and ice occurs faster than accumulation.
- Terrestrial Worlds
- The rocky planets, which include Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
- Jovian Worlds
- The gas giant planets, which include Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
- Radar Ranging
- A technique for measureing distance where pulses of microwaves traveling at the speed of light are sent to a nearby object and the reflected pulse is timed in order to determine the distance. Useful only for objects that are relatively close to earth, such as moons and planets found in our solar system.
- Triangulation
- A distance measuring technique that involves observing the angle to a distant object from at least two different locations with a known separation. It is then possible to determine the unknown distance by comparing the observed angles. Measures distances up to about 100 light years.
- Nebular Hypothesis
- The planets swept together from material in a collapsing gas cloud. Orbital motions increased as the cloud collapsed.
- Maria
- The large, generally crater-free lava plains commonly found on the side of our moon that faces earth.
- Lunar Highlands
- The old, heavily cratered terrain on our moon that is thought to contain material from the original lunar surface.
- Protostar
- An object that will become a star in the early stages of formation before it begins to produce energy from fusion.
- Brown Dwarf
- An object that is like a star except for the fact that it is too small to sustain fusion reactions at its core.
- Stable Star
- In a stable star, the inward force of gravity is balanced by outward pressure due to the generation of energy. This type of equilibrium exists in our sun.
- Red Giant
- A large, bright, cool star that has exhausted most of the hydrogen fuel in its core.
- Planetary Nebula
- A glowing shell of gas that has been blown off an old star.
- White Dwarf
- A small star that no longer sustains nuclear fusion and has shrunk to become a dense object about the size of our earth.
- Black Dwarf
- A black dwarf constitutes the remains of a sun-sized star which has evolved to a white dwarf and subsequently cooled down such that it no longer emits light.
- Supernova
- A rare celestial phenomenon involving the explosion of most of the material in a star, resulting in an extremely bright, short-lived object that emits vast amounts of energy.
- Neutron Star
- The remnant of a supernova explosion that is composed almost totally of neutrons. It is so dense that the entire mass of our sun could be contained in a sphere of only a few tens of kilometers in diameter.
- Olber's Paradox
- A fundamental question in cosmology centered around the observed fact that the sky appears dark at night.
- Hubble Law
- An observed relation between the observed recessional velocity of a galaxy and the distance to that galaxy
- Hubble Constant
- A constant that is part of the Hubble Law; it gives the rate at which our Universe is expanding.
- Cosmic Microwave Background
- A uniform radiant field that is observable in every direction.
- Four ways we learn
- authority, intuition, reason, and sensory data
- Authority
- An accepted source of expert information or advice
- Intuition
- The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition
- Reason
- The capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought, intelligence
- Sensory Data
- Knowledge obtained through the senses
- Existence
- The fact or state of having actual or real being
- Causality
- Cause must always precede the effect
- Position symmetry
- The laws of the universe are not different at different locations
- Time symmetry
- The laws of the universe do not change with time
- Principle of noncontradiction
- Of two contradictory propositions, both cannot be true
- Four Forces
- Gravity, Electromagnetic, Weak Nuclear, Strong Nuclear
- Newton's 1st law
- Law of Intertia--"Every object in a state of rest, or in a state of uniform motion in a straight line with unchanging speed, will stay in that state of rest or of uniform motion, until compelled to do otherwise by forces acting upon it
- Newton's 2nd Law
- Force = Mass * Acceleration
- Newton's 3rd Law
- All forces result from interactions between pairs of objects, each object exerting a force on the other. The two resulting forces have the same strength and act in exactly opposite directions
- Centripetal Acceleration
- The acceleration of turning or changing the direction of motion
- Gravity
-
Force = Gravity * mass * Mass / d^2
The mathematical formula describes the force of gravity beween two objects of mass (mass) and (Mass) separated between their centers by the distance d - Electrical Charge
- The transfer of electrons from one place to another
- Pascal's Law
- Pressure applied to any part of a bounded fluid transmits equally to every other part with no loss. The pressure acts at right angles to any surface in contact with the fluid
- Buoyant Force
- A force pushing upard on objects immersed in a fluid. Buoyant force is equal to the weight of the displaced fluid
- Inertial frame of reference
- A place of being that is experiencing no acceleration. The laws of nature are the same when looking at the universe from an inertial frame of reference. This can be experienced in an enclosed train car, or a space ship
- Object moving toward the speed of light appears
-
-short
-fat
-slow - Conservation Laws
-
-conservation of mass
-conservation of charge
-conservation of linear momentum
-conservation of angular momentum (mass*speed*radius) ie ice skater
-conservation of energy - Three types of heat transfer
-
-conduction (stove)
-convection (heater)
-radiation (light) - Types of waves
-
-transverse (shear)
-Longitudal (compression) - Transverse Wave
- Wave motion is perpendicular of the wave direction. Does not travel through liquid
- Longitudal Wave
- Wave motion is the same direction as the wave direction, i.e. sound waves
- Amplitude
- The maximum amount that a particle will displace from its normal, undisturbed position when a wave passes through it
- Wavelength
- The distance between successive similar parts in a repeating wave
- Frequency
- The number of wave amplitude crests that pass a particular point in space every second
- Wave Speed
- The rate at which a specific wave disturbance travels from point to point
- Light Wave Heiarchy
-
Shortest
-Gamma
-X rays
-Ultraviolet
-visible
-infrared
-microwave
-radio
Longest - Reflection
- The act of a wave bouncing off a surface
- Refraction
- The act of changing direction when passing from one medium to another
- Diffraction
- The changing of direction of waves to bend around corners and spread as they encounter obstacles (hamster)
- Interference
- The canceling and enhancing effect taht occurs when two waves move through the same space at the same time
- Standing Wave
- A wave characterized by lack of vibration at certain points, between which areas of maximum vibration occur. Results when you get the reflection and interference just right
- Doppler Effect
- A change in the observed frequency of a wave occurring when the source and observer are in motion relative to each other (bugsy)
- Light properties
-
Wave: Diffracts, interference patterns
Particle: Grainy picture, photoelectric effect (electroscope experiment) - Light observed
- Behaves as a particle
- Light unobserved
- Behaves as a wave
- States of matter
-
Colder
-solid
-liquid
-gas
-plasma
Hotter - Solid
- A physical state of matter that is characterized by rigidity and resistance to changes in size and shape
- Liquid
- A physical state of matter that readily changes shape to match its container but that resists changes in volume
- Gas
- A physical state of matter that readily changes both shape and volume to match its container
- Boiling water
- When you heat up water the potential energy of each water molecule is increased--that's why it remains at 100 degrees c
- Compression force
- a force that is applied in such a way as to compress a material
- Tension force
- A force that is applied in such a way as to stretch a material
- Shear force
- A force that is applied in such a way as to twist or deform a material
- Continuous Spectrum
- A spectrum in which the colors blend gradually together without noticeably abrupt changes or missing colors
- Discrete Spectra
- A spectrum of separate and distinct colors in which not all colors are present
- Conductors
- Materials that conduct electricity in the solid and liquid state
- Ionic Conductors
- Materials that do not conduct electricity in the solid state, but do when molten or dissolved in water
- Non-conductor
- A material which does not conduct electricity in any of its physical states
- Pressure increases
- When temperature increases
- I hate
- Studying
- Continuous Model
-
Matter classified
No particles - Brownian Motion
- The constant, irregular motion of very fine particles suspended in a fluid and observed with a microscope. Is taken as evidence for molecules, which collide with the observed particles and cause the jittery motion
- Molecular Model
-
-Matter consists of tiny particles called molecules
-Each different kind of matter consists of a different kind of molecule
-The molecules are in constant motion
-Molecules move and interact in accord with lawas of motion, the laws of froce and the laws of conservation. Gas discharge tube experiment proved that molecules were made up of positive and negative charges - Thomson's plum pudding model
- Thomson proposed that the positive charge of an atom was uniformly distributed, like a cloud, throughout a space occupied by an atom. Electrons were embedded randomly within the positively-charged region. It was good because it recognized charges, but the structure was all wrong. Disproven by gold foil experiment, which proved atoms have a positively charged nucleus
- Ruthorford's Solar System Model
- A model of the atom in which the electrons orbit the small, dense, positively-charged nucleus in elliptical paths. Good b/c it had nucleus, bad, if in orbits why no light?
- Bohr's (revised) solar system
- Same as Ruthorford, but no radiating orbiting. Bad b/c he couldn't explain why not
- Quantum Model
-
-positive nucleus
-electrons in orbitals
-standing wave of probability
-exclusion principle (two electrons cannot be in exactly the same state in an atom) - Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle
- The product of the uncertainty in an object's position and the uncertainty in its momentum must be greater than or equal to Planck's Constant--in other words, the more you know about the position the less you know about the speed/momentum
- Wave/Particle duality of matter
- Little brother theory--when you see, or observe, the matter it behaves as a particle, but when unobserved it behaves as a wave
- Atomic Volume
- Increases as you move down and left on the periodic table
- Ionization Engergy
- Increases as you move right and up on the periodic table
- Law of increasing disorder
- Changes occurring in natural systems always proceed in such a way that the total amount of disorder in the universe is either unchanged or increased. If total disorder is increased, the process is irreversable
- Irreversable process
-
A process which goes in only one direction; its effects often cannot be undone. Most processes which occur in nature are irreversible
*separate-mixed
*structure-decay
*energy charge (like a car engine) - Reversible
- A reversible process goes both forward and backward at the same time. there are no 100% reversible processes
- Metalic bond
- Metal-Metal
- Ionic Bond
- Nonmetal-Metal
- Covalent Bond
- Nonmetal-Nonmetal
- Dipole
- the separation of positive and negative charge in a polar bond or molecule (hence dipole-dipole interactions)
- Hydrogen bonding
- type of dipole-dipole bonding that occurres only with hydrogen bonded with nitrogen, oxygen, and flourine