Physics 176 Course-Related Files
Exams
Quizzes
Other:
Journal articles and interesting URLs:
- The
link Heaven
is Hotter than Hell provides an amusing application of
the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law to some statements in the
Bible, with the conclusion that heaven must actually be
hotter than hell.
- "Test of
Inflation", a
recent Nature
general-interest article that discusses the important role
that high-precision measurements of the Cosmic Microwave
Background blackbody radiation plays for understanding the
earliest moments of the Big Bang.
- "Evolution
and the Second Law of Thermodynamics", preprint by Emory
Bunn that discusses to what extent life does not violate the
second law of thermodynamics. Readable and enjoyable for 176 students.
- An
electronic partition function paradox by E. Miranda
(European Journal of Physics 22:483-485 (2001) gives
a physical reason why partition functions of atoms and
molecules do not diverge, namely the higher-energy wave
functions rapidly become macroscopic in size and so start to
interact with the walls of any container.
- Dirac's
1938 paper on a "A New Basis for Cosmology", in which he
tries to understood various large numbers of order
1040 and concludes that the gravitational
constant G is likely varying with the size of
the universe.
-
Specific heats and the equipartition law in introductory
textbooks, Clayton Gearhart, American Journal of
Physics 64(8):995-1000 (1996)
- Dunking
Duck, J. Gaines, American Journal of
Physics 27:189-190 (1959). See also this
website
What is a Dippy Bird, and How is it Used?.
- The
Radiometer and how it does not work by Arthur Woodruff,
Physics Teacher, 6:358-363 (1968).
- Information is
Physical, Rolf Landauer, Physics Today, May 1991.
-
Time without end: Physics and biology in an open
universe by Freeman Dyson, Reviews of Modern
Physics 51(3):447-460 (1979).
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