Fast Monday

Today, I woke up later than every other weekday, but it was alright because yesterday’s dinner was still in me. Friday, we took data on a Sidewinder, and today, I looked forward to talking about it and getting a better understanding of what I took. Along with that, I was anxious to meet new people, because today, we were getting new lab partners.

Professor Bill started class with a lecture on exponential growth and decay. As usual, he involved as many examples as possible. Population was the easiest one to understand because as the population grows, then there are more people contributing to the birth rate. Another example was about depositing money in the bank and letting it grow off of interest. This followed the same process of as it grows, it adds to its own growth rate. We then talked about half-lifes, which is the rate of decay in where half of the substance decay’s over a period of time.

Instead of there being new lab partners, we broke up into our Hershey Park groups to conduct experiments relating to exponential growth and decay. My group did an experiment, where we filled a PVC pipe with water and then let the water exit through a hole in the bottom. What we were observing was the weight of the system as a whole.  We finished rather quickly, so we were dismissed to lunch early. Instead of going and getting the same food at Houston, I stuck with my lab group and went to a restaurant called The Greek Lady. The food was really good and we were served quickly, which helped a lot because it was about a 15 minute walk. 

The Water And PVC Pipe Lab

For this week, I, along with five other students, will be conducting experiments with a cloud chamber. We didn’t actual start the experiment today like other groups, but were given a background about the cloud chamber. We will be trying to observe beta particles and manipulating their movement by copper wire to cause a magnetic field. I am really excited to start working on this project tomorrow because Craig said that it is very difficult and that in his college physics class they could not get the cloud chamber to work. Since we were only given background information about the cloud chamber, we got our incredibly early. Kim, Michael, and I decided to go play pool, while we waited for everyone else to get out. I was envious of the other groups because they actually started their experiments, while all we did was just hang out. Now I just can’t wait for tomorrow to come, so we get started on the infamous cloud chamber.

Craig Lecturing On The Cloud Chamber