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Nuclear Science

 

Rick Norman - Stellar Academy: The Origin of the Elements

Dr. Norman discussed atomic and nuclear structure, the hunt for neutrinos, the stages of star formation and death, and the elements created in the stellar life process.

Lecture pdf

 

Hands On

Relativity and Time Dilation - Glen Melnik (Physics teacher, Piedmont High School)

Mr. Melnik illustrated Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity using a theoretical scenario of a person in a room traveling at relativistic speed: There is a clock in the room consisting of a photon beam bouncing between the ceiling and the floor. The photon beam must travel a larger distance when set in motion than when at rest - making the clock "tick" slower. He used simple trigonometry and algebra to show the students a derivation of the Lorentz Transformations from the assumptions of Special Relativity.

 

 

 

Watch Video on YouTube

Minds On

Nucleosynthesis - Dan Shortenhaus  (Miramonte High School Physics teacher)

Mr. Shortenhaus reviewed atomic properties and the four forces - weak, strong, electromagnetic, and gravity. His presentation included questions on what force holds protons and neutrons together in the nucleus, characteristics of the electric force, and characteristics of the strong force. He also demonstated and explained some of these forces with a Van de Graaff generator:

 

 

 

Watch Video on YouTube

 

Nucleosynthesis is the process of creating new atomic nuclei from preexisting nucleons (protons and neutrons). It is thought that the primordial nucleons themselves were formed from the quark-gluon plasma from the Big Bang as it cooled below two trillion degrees. There are a number of astrophysical processes which are believed to be responsible for nucleosynthesis in the universe. The majority of these occur within the hot matter inside stars. The successive nuclear fusion processes which occur inside stars are known as hydrogen burning (via the proton-proton chain or the CNO cycle), helium burning, carbon burning, neon burning, oxygen burning and silicon burning.

 

 

 

 


The Particle Chart was used to describe particles and interactions

 

Math Activity

    • Look up the abundance of the elements in the universe.  It’s  reasonable to assume most of today’s helium was formed from  protons  and neutrons  in the first “three minutes” (use 220 seconds).  Can you predict the mass ratio of helium to hydrogen in today’s universe starting with a neutron to proton ratio of .22  and using the half life of the neutron?

 

 

Cyber Reflections

Students and teachers summarize lessons using Facebook and Inspiration software

 

21st Century Cosmology

Astronomy

Particle Physics

Mt. Diablo Field Trip

Dark Energy

Dark Matter

The Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs Particle

Cal Teach Stations

Final Day: Student presentations

Workshop homepage