Mathematical Assignment
For these questions, you will refer to Section 7.6 (Conservation of Energy) in the OpenStax College Physics textbook. For all your answers, write down your calculations and explain your reasoning. Draw sketches whenever helpful, and use your units correctly. If you are using any online resources (such as unit conversion tools) other than the OpenStax textbook, give their URL and webpage title in your answers.
[a] A person has a weight at Earth’s surface of Z pounds. What is their mass in kilograms?
[b] If that person jumps six inches into the air, they will add 1.5 joules of potential energy to their body for each kilogram of mass they are. How much potential energy will they add in total if they jump at the bottom of a staircase and land on a higher step 12 inches up?
[c] How much sugar (which is a carbohydrate) would that person’s body need to metabolize to produce that much energy? You can estimate that stair-jumping is about as efficient as climbing.
[d] A typical fun-size (not full-size) candy bar has, in addition to other ingredients, 10 grams of sugar. How many 12-inch stair-jumps would this person need to do to use up the food energy stored in the sugar of such a candy bar? Does that seem like a reasonable number of stair-jumps to do in a typical exercise session?
3. In the OpenStax College Physics textbook, read the first part of Chapter 32 (Medical Applications of Nuclear Physics) up through and including Section 32.4 (Food Irradiation). Based on that reading, answer each of the questions below, in about 30-50 words each.
[a] What do you think is the longest half-life of a radioactive isotope that could be used for medical imaging? Explain your answer, and write down one or two other interesting things you learned in Section 32.1 of the text.
[b] How do the units rem, rad, and Ci (curie) mathematically convert to the units Sv (Sievert), gray (Gy), and Bq (bequerel) respectively? Also, write down one or two other interesting things you learned in Section 32.2 of the text.
[c] Do you know or have you read about anyone who has had radiation treatments for cancer? If not, fmd such a story on the intemet about such a person. Briefly, what course of treatment did they experience? How does that information relate to what you read in Section 32.3 of the text?
[d] If you eat food from supermarkets or restaurants, then you have almost certainly eaten irradiated food throughout your life. What one or two interesting things did you read about in Section 32.4 might affect how you feel about eating irradiated food in the future?
3. For the following questions, handwrite all your answers on a separate sheet of paper. You must write your solutions by hand, cite all your references, and show all your calculations.
[a] Read the essay “Science as Falsification” by Karl Popper. Then write a 30-50 word summary of what you feel are the main ideas of this essay. Based on your reading, do you agree with Karl Popper’s definition of science? (The essay is at staff.washington.edu/lynnhank/Popper-l.pdf or eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/liu10/files/2010/08/Kpopper_Falsification.pdf) Why or why not?
[b] Watch the Crash Course Philosophy video #8 at youtube.com/watch?v=-X8Xfl0RITQ (Karl Popper, Science, and Pseudoscience). Answer in roughly 50 words this question: how does this video’s presentation of Karl Popper’s idea of science as falsifiability connect with the concepts expressed in Lecture 02 about what science is? If it doesn’t, explain why not.
[c] Referring to the video in Part [b] above, what are one or two big ideas expressed between 6:00 and 8:00 of Crash Course Philosophy #8 that have made an impression on you? Explain why they made an impression on you personally.
[d] Go to youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIjnepQR5pV-3iTxs34-GIZsSRwHQso5r [Science Forward Class Videos]. Look through it; choose two videos in the playlist to watch except for the first one. Watch those videos; write down their title, why you chose the video, one person that spoke about their scientific work on the video, and one idea that is particularly interesting to you. Your answer for each video should be roughly 50 words in length.
[e] This is a mathematical exercise. Using the relationship “force equals mass times acceleration,” write an answer to the following question: if an object with mass X grams is being accelerated at Z centimeters per second squared, then how much force is being exerted on the object? Show your calculations on the page.
3. For the following questions, handwrite all your answers on a separate sheet of paper. You may use any resources you wish to answer them. You must write your solutions by hand, cite all your references, and show all your calculations.
[a] Watch the video https://youtube.com/watch?v=GOuZkYDQjpc (Dianna’s Intro Physics Class: Trailer). As presented in this video, what is physics? Is it consistent with your experiences with physics to date, and why? (Your answers should total 30-50 words.)
[b] Watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2vpZR_q-CI (What is Physics? Physics In Motion). How does the defmition of physics presented in this video compare to that from the video in Question 4 above? Based on this definition, give an example of physics in your own life. (Your answers should again total 30-50 words.)
[c] In the OpenStax College Physics online textbook, read the “Section Summary” parts of Chapter 1 (Introduction: The Nature of Science and Physics) and Chapter 2 (Kinematics). In a roughly 30-50 word answer, write down which concepts and equations in these two summaries are familiar to you from previous science courses, and which are new to you.
4. Watch Segment B (Scientific Notation and Unit Conversions) and Segment C (Significant Figures) of the Physics in Motion series https://www.gpb.org/physics-in-motion and compute and write answers to the following questions.
[a] If a hockey puck of mass Y grams (g) is moving at Z centimeters per second (cm/s), what is the momentum of this puck in units of kilogram meters per second (kg m/s)?
[b] If a child with mass Y kilograms (kg) is being accelerated in a car at 0.89 meters per second squared (m/s2), then how much force is being exerted on that child? You may choose what units to use to express that force; in this instance, your answer is significant to only two digits.
[c] In 20-40 words, explain why you think scientists make such a big deal about significant digits. Why should we not, for example, just write down all the digits on your calculator screen as an answer to a math-based science problem?
5. Create a question about a person experiencing X newtons of force that uses Newton’s Third Law of Motion to answer it. Then answer it.
