Feedback Week 8

I thought the lab was really cool and helpful. I had done a spectroscopy lab in Chemistry back in high school, but this was far better!

rockin' good news.

I'm still having trouble understanding how transitors work. Could you possibly go over it in class tommorow again?

sorry about the late feedback, but I had seen this and put a slide in on transistors for you in the review ; )

I am just curious as how real lasers work. I understand the physics principles, but there is one aspect that i don't get. Once the energy is built up in the laser, how is it released through the end of the laser while still maintaining its energy build up? How is the mirror at one end made to allow photons through it, but not let all of its photons go at once.

exactly right... you ought poke your head in a laser lab one of these days and say, 'what's up' -- -but your analysis is correct. one of the end mirrors (the output coupler) is only partially reflective --- say 90%--- then 9 photons out of ten get bounced back and 1 photon goes through... you've seen silvered glass that you can partly see your reflection and partly see through, this is just like that...

I felt that Zolton did a very good job of explaining lasers. The lecture made sense to me after class and I felt that I walked away with a good understanding of lasers for how complax they are.

cool. I'll let him know.

(1) I found slide 11 from Tuesday's lecture really helpful to understand Rayleigh Scattering. It's a really good visual!(2) Haha. I know it was mentioned in help session that Kristen never got a Starburst for the idea about energy and the blue bottoms of flames. Perhaps you could reconcile with her? haha

thansk for looking after each other...

(3) Perhaps I was misinformed but I also thought the twinkling of stars was contributed to dust particles in the sky. Is that true?

not nearly as much as the variations in atmospheric density.

(4) Thursday's lecture was really good. Not that we don't love you, but it was nice to see a change in scenery with who was presenting haha. Zoltan gave really good explanations too.(5) Last of all, I just wanted to give props to the LA's helping with help sessions. They are doing a mighty fine job and making concepts understandable while making us think critically about the principles at hand. Keep up the good work!

thanks we have a great team.

McDermott, Margaret I really enjoyed the laser lecture! It was fun to see all of the demos and simulations and it really helped me to understand how lasers work!

ditto... thanks.

I thought that this weeks homework was very wordy and it made it a little confusing. If the problems were less wordy,I think that we could answer them easier.

I'll work on this... but always feel free to ask a TA/LA or even... yes me... what I mean.

I just wanted to get clear on something. Are electromagnetic fields created whenever *any* particle accelerates (the particle could be an electron, proton or neutron(?)).

no not a neutron becuase it does not have charge associated with it.

I usually think of electromagnetic fields as being created by oscillating electrons, though I'm wondering if that's not the most correct way to think about it.

this is exactly correct.

Taking this a bit further, do groups of particles, or groups of atoms, when accelerating, create an electromagnetic field (since they are all made of the same funamental units). Does a car, or a squirrel, or a human create an electromagnetic field when they accelerate?

you really need a net charge... but as you know particles moving around give off heat / radiation -- this blackbody radiation is a form of energy / heat.

I was interested in the connection between the different energy levels or gaps that produce certain colors and how dyes are made or what chemicals make certain colors the way they are.

great topic for a paper in this class.

I would like to say first that I think this homework is the best as far as format and length that we've had so far (though I'd love to have a HW 4 length every week). There are both essays and computational problems, which I feel is a good combination for our understanding of physics. Also, the homework seemed to be just the right length. It still took me two help sessions to finish, but I wasn't worried that I wouldn't finish with adequate answers.

glad to hear ...

The only issue that I wanted to comment on was last week's help session on Tuesday. One other student and I went in last Tuesday and there was one question that the L.A.'s couldn't come to a consensus on. They had two different approaches to the problem and were confusing us because they disagreed with the other person's reasoning/answer. So, that made things confusing. But, I got the full points for that question so I must have figured it out ok for myself.

this is often the process of science... I dont promise that we all know all of the answers.. the question is can we reason through this in a scientific way ....

When are you talking about the paper???

info is on the website.

[Zoltan] gave a great lecture. www.whatthebleep.com I like our class, everyone is pretty cool and I'm glad that Noah has ... humour

thanks... we have a great community here.