An isotope is an atom
containing a specific combination of neutrons and protons. Some are stable, others decay
spontaneously. Some are abundant, some
are rare.
Give two examples of
chaotic systems.
The examples mentioned by
Philander are the path of a wallet sliding down a mogulled
ski slope, and the planet’s weather.
Other examples are certainly possible.
Financial markets were a popular response.
Quiz #3: 2/7/05
What property of light was revealed by Young’s
double-slit experiment?
Young’s experiment showed
definitively that light must be wavelike in nature (in contrast to
Quiz #4: 2/14/05
What property of light was revealed by the
photoelectric effect?
The photoelectric effect demonstrated that light arrived in discrete packets (quanta or photons), whose energy was solely determined by frequency (or “color”).
Quiz #5: 2/16/05
The greenhouse effect may be characterized by the
difference between…
The greenhouse effect may be
characterized by the difference between the temperatures at the top of the
atmosphere and the earth’s surface.
Quiz #6: 2/21/05
Why is the atmosphere much less stable than the
world’s oceans?
The atmosphere is heated from
below, leading to vigorous convection, while the oceans are heated from above.
Quiz #7: 3/2/05
Give at least one way in which water and/or water
vapor alters the temperature of the earth’s surface.
Possible answers include the albedo of clouds, snow and ice (cooling), the radiative trapping of outgoing longwave radiation (greenhouse warming), and the redistribution of latent heat within the atmosphere as a result of evaporation over the ocean surface, and condensation at higher altitudes.
Quiz #9: 3/7/05
At the most basic level, what causes winds to blow?
Winds blow as a result of
pressure gradients. These pressure
gradients very often (but not always) result from temperature gradients due to
uneven heating of the atmosphere. While
the earth’s rotation influences the direction of winds, it doesn’t cause
them. It is quite possible to have dead
calm on a rotating planet.
Quiz #9: 3/11/05
What causes atmospheric circulation to be different in
the Northern and Southern Hemispheres?
Atmospheric circulation is determined
by the distribution of land and water, the topography of the land, and the coriolus force. All
of these things differ in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Quiz #10: 3/30/05
State the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
As a closed system evolves over time, its entropy will either remain constant or increase.
Quiz #11: 4/20/05
State the “faint young sun” paradox (also known as the
faint-sun/warm-earth paradox).
Early in the earth’s history,
the sun was 25-30% dimmer than it is today.
However, there is clear evidence of a warm planet with liquid water at
these times. How can the luminosity of
the sun have changed so much, yet the earth’s temperature has
remained roughly constant?
Quiz #12: 4/25/05
If the earth’s axis were not tilted, would we still
have seasons? Why or why not?
Because the earth’s tilt is the primary source of seasons (increasing or reducing the intensity of solar radiation at a given latitude, and also changing the length of the day), a tilt-less earth would be nearly free of seasons. However, the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit (and the fact that the sun does not lie exactly at the center of the ellipse) would lead to a tiny residual seasonality.