Post at least 3 substantive responses over 2 separate days for full participation. This includes your initial post (175 words) and 2 replies (100 words each) to other students or to your instructor’s follow-up questions. Make sure to address all of the bullet points in your initial response to each discussion topic. Also, make sure you have completed the Learning Activities first so that you can learn about the topics we will be discussing. Your posts need to be in the current week. Posts after the weekends are ineligible to receive points. Posts must occur during the week we are currently in.
Due Thursday (5/9/2024)
This week, consider the following terms:
Converging lens
Critical angle
Diverging lens
Fiber optics
Focal length
Focal point
Index of refraction
Optics
Rainbow
Ray
Refraction
Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:
Choose at least 2 terms from the list and answer the following questions for each term:
What familiarity and prior knowledge do you have about the term?
What does the term mean in everyday language to everyday people? Use examples to help describe your thoughts. How do people use the word?
What does the term mean in technical language to physicists?
How is the term related to the course student learning outcome: Define and use the electromagnetic spectrum to explain natural phenomena?
What are the similarities and differences between the everyday and technical meanings and uses of the term?
How might the similarities and differences impact your learning of physics concepts in this course?
Post 2 replies to classmates or your faculty member. Be constructive and professional.
1st classmate;
Christian Kramer
The two terms I have chosen for this week’s discussion are optics and ray. I am familiar with these terms from previous courses and general knowledge. In everyday language, optics can be anything involving sight, such as glasses or technology related to improving sight. On the other hand, rays are most commonly referred to as the rays from the sun. In technical language to physicists, optics refers to the studies of the behavior of light and how it interacts with matter. Within the study of optics, rays are a geometrical model of light or electromagnetic radiation used to define pathways for energy flow. When viewing the course student learning outcome, we can see how both optics and rays are used to deepen our understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum when observing light. By viewing the similarities and differences between these terms and placing them into practice, we can distinguish how rays are used to study and observe energy pathways in optics, leading to a deeper understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum and other physics concepts in this course.
2nd classmate;
Melba Whitehead
This week I’ve chosen optics and rainbow. In my line of work, appearance is everything, and we use the word optics to describe it. For me it means that eyes are always on me, so I must be careful, because no one cares about the truth. The only important thing is what it looks like and what’s the best story. Another way I think of the word optics in everyday life is like studying how light plays around. You know how when sunlight hits something shiny, it bounces off? That’s reflection. Or when light bends when it goes through water? That’s refraction. Optics is all about understanding these tricks light does.
I like rainbows. We’ve all seen those beautiful arcs of colors after it rains. Well, think of sunlight as a painter with a big box of colors. When sunlight passes through raindrops, the colors get separated, creating a rainbow.
In physics, optics gets into the nitty-gritty of how all this happens. It involves extreme math and precise details about how light travels and behaves, from how lenses work in glasses to why the sky is blue.
