MODULE 1: THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE BEGINNINGS OF MATERIAL AND ENERGY

Matter

Anything that occupies space and has mass

Energy

Ability to do change

Empedocles (494-434 BC)

• Philosopher that developed the 1st theory of matter.

• Proposed that the universe is composed of 4 elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water

• 4 elements arise from possible combinations of 2 properties (hotness vs coldness; dryness vs wetness)

Plato (427-348 BC)

• Idealist who believed that objects in the physical world are just “shadows” or copies of the ideal or “platonic world”

• Influence buy Euclid’s discovery of the 5 regular solids.

• Made the 1st periodic table.

Quintessence

• Takes on the shape of an icosahedron.

• 5th cosmic substance

• Unexplainable substance that make up the heavenly realms.

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

• Plato’s Student

• Believed in Realism where the mathematical (ideal world) only emerged from the physical world

Final Causation or destiny

• Aristole’s concept of motion illustrates the importance of ______

• solid objects which are made of Earth elements are "destined" to clump together with other solids. So, objects tend to fall on earth (their natural place).

• Falling objects fall to return to their natural position (vertical motion)

Horizontal motion

Aristotle’s theory has difficulty in explaining _____

GALILEO GALILEI (1564-1642)

• proved that all bodies accelerate at the same rate regardless of their size or mass

• Developed the concept of motion in terms of velocity (speed and direction) through the use of inclined planes

• Developed the idea of force as a cause of motion

• determined that the natural state of an object is rest or uniform motion (zero velocity)

• objects resist change in motion is called inertia.

ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1726)

Formulated the laws of motion.

law of inertia

1st law: a body remains at rest or moves in a straight line of constant velocity as long as no external forces acts on it.

F=0

Law of Inertia formula

law of acceleration

2nd law: A body acted on by a force will accelerate such that force equals mass times acceleration

F=ma

Law of acceleration formula

law of action-reaction

3rd law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

F=F

Law of action-reaction formula

Law of universal Gravitation

• newton determines that gravity controls the motion of objects in the universe (i.e. Newton's Apple)

• objects in the universe attract each other w/ a force directly as the product of their masses and inversely as the square of their distances.

• All masses, regardless of size, attract each other w/ gravity. You don't notice the force from nearby objects because their mass is so small compared to the mass of the Earth.

Osmosis

movement of particles from a higher concentration to a lower concentration.

Kinetic molecular theory

1. Processes of osmosis, diffusion and the concept of temperature and pressure can be explained

2. Basis of our knowledge of the movement of matter on a microscopic level

3. Allows scientists to explain the behavior of matter in the different physical states that matter can exist

4. Provides a thorough means of understanding the process of energy transfer between particles of matter

Ernest Rutherford

overturned J.J. Thomson's model in 1911 with his well-known gold foil experiment in which he demonstrated that the atom has a tiny and heavy nucleus.

nucleus

composed of 2 particles, the neutron and proton, surrounded by a cloud of extremely small particles called electrons.

Quarks

• Small particles that make up protons and neutrons

• are any of a number of subatomic particles carrying a fractional electrical charge, postulated as building blocks of hadrons

Proton

is made up of 2 "up" quarks and 1 "down" quark

Hadron

• is a subatomic composite particle made of 2 or more quarks held together by strong force.

• are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei

Niels Bohr (1913)

• developed a different model of the atom similar to the Rutherford model except the electrons can only move in fixed or quantized orbits

Quantum mechanics

• The atom is best described through high-order mathematical relationships in a field of science called _________.

• Explains the nature and behavior of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic level.

• Form the basis of particle physics, modern theoretical chemistry, and the solid-state physics that describes the behavior of the silicon chips used in computers

quanta

Energy exist in tiny discrete units called _______

wavelike properties

Shows that both light and matter consists of tiny particles which have ___________ associated with them.

Photons

Light is composed of particles called ________.

theory of relativity

Quantum theory and the _____________ together form the theoretical basis of modern physics

Particle physics

• Branch of physics that studies the elementary constituents of matter and radiation and the interactions between them

God Particle

the search for the _______ tries to answer the question what gives matter its mass?

Einstein's theory of Relativity

• Resolves newtonian physics when energies or velocities are near the speed of light

Relativity

• _______ redefined fundamental constants, such as length, mass, and time, to be variable

• These parameters did not become uncertain, (quite the opposite) only Relative.

Special and General Relativity

• Relativity is broken into 2 parts

• The involve inertial frames and accelerated or gravitational frames respectively.

Michelson-Morley

This experiment shows speed of light is constant regardless of motion of observer

constant speed of light

Einstein makes _______ key premise to special relativity

speed of light

299 792 458 m/s

upper limit

speed of light is an _____, objects w/ mass must move at less than speed of light

different rates

A consequence of the speed of light limit is that clocks can run at _______ simply when they are travelling at different velocities

Time dilation

passage of time slows for objects moving close to the speed of light.

spacetime

Relativity links where and when into a continuum called ______

momentum

If space and time are variable notions then _______ must also be relative

conservation of energy

• in order to preserve _________ mass must be connected to momentum

mass increases

• _________ as one nears the speed of light, which explains the limit to the speed of light of material objects. you need infinite acceleration to move an infinitely increasing mass

Equivalence principle

• General relativity unifies space, time, mass and energy by combining special relativity w/ the ___________

• _________ equates acceleration and gravitational effects

• Allowed einstein to predict that photons will be affected by gravity, even though they have zero mass

Gravity

Bends light based on equivalence principle

Mass

_____ distorts spacetime, causing it to curve

Gravity

_____ can be described as motion caused in curved spacetime

matter, spacetime

_____ tells spacetime how to curve, ______ tells matter how to move (orbits)

cosmological redshift

• General relativity says that when spacetime stretches around a massive object, the light traveling through spacetime stretches too.

• so light that starts out one color ends up slightly diff. (longer wavelength) color after traveling through stretched spacetime.

• The color shift is called ___________ and the extent of this in their light lets us measure how far other galaxies are.

Georges Lemaître

In 1927, Belgian priest _________ proposed an expanding model for the universe based on the work of einstein. He theorized that the universe began from a single point in spacetime.

Edwin Hubble

In 1929 _________ provided evidence to Lemaître's theory. Observations of cosmological redshift in distant galaxies showed that they were receding away from us at huge speed -> the Universe is expanding

Cosmic microwave background (CMB)

• If the Big bang indeed happened, there must be remnant radiation from an early stage of the universe that is still perceivable today

• Shortly before the death of Lemaître, an accidental discovery of this remnant radiation known as the ________

Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson

Discovered cosmic microwave background (CMB) in 1965

Steady state theory

• A view that the universe is always expanding but maintaining a constant average density w/ matter being continuously created to form new stars and galaxies

• universe has no beginning or end in time, and from any point within it the view on the grand scale i.e. the average density and arrangement of galaxies is the same

Sir Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold, and Sir Fred Hoyle

1st put forward the steady state theory in 1948

Oscillating universe theory

• the variant of the Big Bang theory in which it is suggested that the universe passes through successive cycles of expansion and contraction (or collapse)

• At the end of the collapse phase, with the universe packed into a small volume of great density, it is possible that a "bounce" would occur

• The universe would thus oscillate bet Big bang and Big crunch episodes and so be infinite in age.

Theories on Origin of the solar system

• Nebular Hypothesis

• Collision theory

• Fission theory

• Capture theory

• Gas cloud theory

Nebular Hypothesis

• concept that the solar system formed from a spinning cloud of gas

• the sun and its planets supposedly condensed out of swirling eddies of cold, dark, interstellar clouds of gas and dust.

Pierre Simon Laplace

Proponent of nebular Hypothesis

Fission theory

The origin of the solar system is regarded as due to the break up of a single mass because of its rotation.

Capture theory

says that our planets and moons were wandering around space and the planets were captured by the gravity of our sun, and the moons were captured by our planets

Collision theory

• this theory suggests that our planets, moons, and sun all spun off a collision between stars.

GAS CLOUD theory

gas clouds were captured by our sun which then mysteriously formed themselves at a distance into planets and moons

4.57 billion years old

Age of earth

radioactive isotopes

Meteorites gives us access to debris left over from the formation of the solar system. we can date meteorites using ________ in their decay products

Core accretion model

• According to this model, heavier materials orbiting the sun clumped together to form terrestrial planets close to the sun.

• solar wind swept lighter materials away from the sun to form gas giants (JSUN)

1st half billion years

• For the _______ of its existence, the surface of the earth was repeatedly pulverized by asteroids, and comets.

Giant Impact Hypothesis

One collision, according to the _________ was between the proto-Earth and a Mars-sized planetesimal

Moon

• A considerable amount of material was blown off to space but remained in orbit, which became our ____

• The collision added so much heat to the Earth that it melted

Hadean Eon

This so called ______ (earth's 1st 500 m years) is a critical link in understanding our planetary evolution

collisions, compression, and radioactivity

The early Earth's interior undergoes heating and melting because of 3 factors: __________ of elements (e.g. uranium)

global chemical differentiation

• The early Earth's interior undergoes heating and melting because of 3 factors: collisions, compression, and radioactivity of elements (e.g. uranium)

• About 100 million years after initial accretion, temperatures reached the melting point of iron

• In a process called ____________, the heavier elements, including the melted iron, began to sink down making the core of the Earth, while the lighter elements such as oxygen and silica floated up towards the surface.

• This process was completed by about 4.3 billion years ago, and the Earth had developed an inner and outer core, a mantle and crust

• 4.3 billion years ago

• This process was completed by about ______, and the Earth had developed an inner and outer core, a mantle and crust

Formation of Atmosphere

• Early Earth is thought to already have a thin atmosphere composed primarily of helium (He) and hydrogen (H) gases

• However, Earth's gravity could not hold these light gases and they easily escaped into outer space

• For the next several hundred million years, volcanic out-gassing began to create a thicker atmosphere composed of a wide variety of gases including water vapor (H2O)

• Note the oxygen gas (O2) is not yet present

Formation of Oceans

• It is hypothesized that water vapor escaping from the interior of the Earth via countless volcanic eruptions created the oceans (this took hundreds of millions of years)

• Astronomers also hypothesize that comets impacting the Earth were a major source of water that contributed to creation of the oceans

• The earliest evidence of surface water on Earth dates back about 3.8 billion years

  
  

Earth @ 1 Billion Years Old

• 3.5 billion years ago, when the Earth was a billion years old, it had a thick atmosphere composed of CO2, methane, water vapor and other volcanic gases but contained almost NO oxygen gas

  
  

• Earth also had extensive oceans and seas of salt water, which contained many dissolved elements, such as iron

  
  

• LIFE began on Earth

Abiogenesis

• is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter

• Study of this aims to determine how pre-life chemical reactions gave rise to life under conditions strikingly different from those on Earth today

Miller-Urey experiment

________ and similar research demonstrated that most amino acids, the chemical constituents of the proteins used in all living organisms, can be synthesized from inorganic compounds under conditions intended to replicate those of the early Earth

lightning and radiation

• Scientists proposed various external sources of energy may have triggered these reactions, including __________

Panspermia hypothesis

_________ speculates that microscopic life arose outside Earth by unknown mechanisms, and spread to the early Earth on space dust, comets and meteoroids

Carl Sagan

an astronomer and science communicator popularized the concept of a Cosmic Calendar