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Re: [Phys-l] Good Questions



At 17:26 -0500 10/7/06, Cliff Parker wrote:

I am looking for good questions and am hoping that the combined wisdom of my
esteemed colleagues will be able to help me out. Questions I can ask my
high school physics class that will cause them to apply things they have
learned over the years in an effort to figure out the way things are or how
they work. One such questions that I have used many times with great
success follows. Perhaps it will give you more of an idea of what I am
looking for.

1) What causes the contrail behind a jet airplane and what is it made out
of?

An excellent question. And as a follow-on, you might ask why they only occur in a fairly narrow band of elevation--roughly 32,000 to 34,000 feet--and seldom above or below that.

Here are some others:

What causes rainbows and why are they seen where they are?

Why does a lightning rod work?

Why can a baseball or golf ball curve horizontally in its trajectory?

Why do some of the planets seem to move backwards (relative to the stellar background) in the sky sometimes (retrograde motion)?

Why is the sky blue (and the sunset red)?

Flight at low altitude can sometimes alternate between smooth and bumpy in the space of just a few minutes. Why?

The relative humidity of the atmosphere over the Antarctic continent is typically less than 10%. If the ground is covered by a thick layer of ice, why is the humidity so low?

There are also any number of books that can provide you with further questions, among them are Jearl Walker's "Flying Circus of Physics," although those questions tend to be really hard ones. Also there is a series of book by James Trefil that examine the physics of everyday phenomena. Two whose titles I can recall are "Physics from an Airplane Window," and "A Scientist at the Seashore." I don't know if they are still in print.

Hugh
--

************************************************************
Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

When you are arguing with a stupid person, it is a good idea to make sure that
person isn't doing the same thing.
Anonymous