Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Wednesday Quiz III:5 -- Physics, Baby!


The Wednesday Quiz -- Season III -- Quiz 5

Physics, Baby!

The Wednesday Quiz is a "closed-book" test of knowledge and intuition; please do not look up answers, ask others for help, or answer as a team.

Questions about the rules and the ~Fabulous Prizes~ are answered here.

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Having dragged you through the Math, the Wednesday Quiz now thrusts you into the Physics. Ten questions worth ten points apiece, just like the Wednesday Quizzes of yore. Enjoy!

1. What is the Sun made out of?

2. At what temperature would all molecular motion essentially cease?

3. What is located one Astronomical Unit from the center of the Sun?

4. What happens at 9.8m/s²?

5. What is the everyday term for the phase change of liquid to gas? (HINT: it's not "evaporation," although I can see why you'd think so.)

6. What do you call that apparent shift in the frequency of sound or light due to relative motion between the source of the sound or light and the observer?

7. What do you call the phase of matter in which molecules that are relatively far apart are in a constant, random motion and have weak cohesive forces acting between them, thus resulting in an indefinite shape and volume?

8. You know how you can't measure the exact momentum and the exact position of a subatomic particle at the same time? What's that idea called?

9. What do you call an atom or a particle that has a net charge because it has gained or lost electrons?

10. What three things would you need to know to figure out the force of gravity acting between any two objects in the universe? Aside from the formula, that is.



Submit your answers in the comments!

26 comments:

Elaine said...

1. It is a big ball of flaming gases much too numerous to list here. ha ha
2. -1000 C
3. Barney's Gas 'n' Go
4. Top secret stuff; you have to be on a special Need to Know list
5. Sublimation
6. Doppelganger Effect
7. liquid
8. Following the bouncing ball
9. A positron
10. The weight of each item and the distance between them

And I thought I couldn't get any lower on the scoring scale LAST season!

Christine M. said...

1. The Sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees...
2. absolute zero
3. the earth
4. dogs bark
5. digestion
6. doppler effect
7. liquid
8. dunno
9. dunno
10. Snap, Crackle, Pop

I fell asleep in high school physics class. Seriously.

Cartophiliac said...

1. hydrogen helium and other stuff
2. absolute zero
3. the orbit of earth?
4. break the sound barrier?
5. every day in whose household?
6. phase shift
7. gas
8. separation of church and state
9. isotope?
10. mass volume treble

Elizabeth said...

I got an "A" in physics, but only because of a Gahan Wilson cartoon I copied in my lab book, I think. Well, here goes:

1. Mostly exploding hydrogen, I think.
2. Absolute zero.
3. We are.
4. A large boom.
5. Transpiration.
6. The Doppler effect.
7. Wow, no idea.
8. I think it's the Heisenberg principle.
9. Shoot, that's an easy one. And I can't remember it at all.
10. The mass of the objects, their distance from each other, and ... and ... their relative velocities?

Better go get that book of cartoons.

Dug said...

1. Sunny things like Kellogg's Raisin Bran and Sunny Delight.

2. Zero Kelvin though when it was 95 degrees F here the other day things got pretty slow.

3. My iPod touch.

4. Nothing happens.

5. What happens in the bathroom stays in the bathroom.

6. Was going to call it a doppelganger but Elaine beat me to it so I'll just say it's a Doppler shift.

7. A Romantic Comedy - at least the part about the weak cohesive forces.

8. Actually I didn't know that.

9. A happy particle for losing all that negativity. Though I hear that negative ions are good for your mood.

10. What planet you are on. What are these objects. Where did you put that damn slide rule.

Nichim said...

1. Hydrogen turning into helium (at a temperature of millions of degrees)
2. Absolute Zero (0 Kelvin, -1000 C)
3. ME
4. Sound waves go
5. Vaporization
6. parallax? Mr. Nichim should do this one, I'm always asking him these kinds of questions, usually just as he's trying to go to sleep
7. gas
8. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?
9. an ion
10. mass of both and the distance between them

mrs.5000 said...

1 hydrogen and helium
2 absolute zero
3 um, Earth?
4 that would be acceleration...of a falling object, due to Earth's gravity, in the vicinity of the planet's surface
5 gassification?
6 Doppler effect
7 liquid
8 the Uncertainty Principle. You probably want a name, too, there's a name in front of it that I'm uncertain about...at first I was thinking Heidegger, but he's too philosophical...definitely not Heineken...Isn't it Heismann? Though that's a football trophy...No, I think it's Heismann, or Heisman...not Eisman...Well, it most certainly isn't Kiriboti!
9 it's a...it's a...it's...oh hell. Maybe it's an isotope?
10 the mass of the first object, the mass of the second object, and the distance between them

mrs.5000 said...

Rats, I should have included Hindenberg in my guesses at #8, and then I would have at least had all the component parts of Heisenberg swirling around in untrackable fashion...

Melissa said...

1. The Sun is a mass of incandescent gas.
2. 0 Kelvin
3. The Earth
4. Michael5000 stops making hard quizzes
5. My husband is going to tease me for not being able to think of this. Sublimation?
6. A blurry photo
7. A gas
8. Relativity
9. Ion
10. The mass of each object and ?

Ben said...

1. Hydrogen, for one.
2. Absolute zero
3. The Earth
4. Acceleration of gravity (the acceleration at which things fall on--above--earth).
5. boiling
6. The Doppler Affect
7. gas
8. a can't-do attitude
9. an ion
10. distance, mass, volume

Morgan said...

1. The sun is a mass of incandescent gas. Hydrogen and Helium, with trace amounts of heavier elements.
2. 0 K. Approximately -273 C.
3. Earth!
4. Gravity.
5. Boiling.
6. That would be the Doppler effect.
7. Gas.
8. Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle.
9. Ion!
10. The mass of one object, the mass of the other object, the distance between those objects.

Jenners said...

My answer to all questions is: F**k if I know.

Elaine said...

I sent this link to my daughter (who is a research physicist) and by damn she is too busy, apparently, to help her poor old aging mother who won't be here many more years to be kicked around and ignored in her hour of need. If you get my drift.

I had already put in my stellar answers (some more stellar than others, since if you don't know anything you should at least make a joke).....but still, I think she should have made an effort. As a Federal employee, after all, she was being paid for her time to assist a citizen. But don't worry about ME, just keep up your oh-so-important work to do with barium strontium and so forth. sniff.

UnwiseOwl said...

1. It's a mass of incandescent gas (largely hydrogen and helium (and many others in smaller amounts)). I bet EVERYBODY quoted that song...
2. Absolute Zero, (0 K).
3. I'm not sure. Perhaps the Earth?
4. The approximate acceleration due to gravity on or near the surface of the earth.
5. Boiling. I only stopped shouting 'Set phasers to hot' when I boiled the kettle a few years ago, on realising that it wasn't that funny after all.
6. Doppler effect, baby. WOOOOOoooooOOOOOOoooo
7. I call it a gas, I don't know what you call it, but that wasn't the question, was it?
8. Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle. Physics starts hurting my brain before I get to the level at which I can prove it, though.
9. Most people call it an ion, we just think of him as Joe.
10. 3 things? Well, you need the mass of each object, that's two, and the distance between them, but you also need to know the gravitational constant...then you need to know that they're in an isolated system and...yeah, sorry...

DrSchnell said...

1. The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is turned into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees." But, see in response TMBG 2008 ("Why does the sun REALLY shine?") - "The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma, the sun's not merely made out of gas, no no! ... Forget what you've been told in the past..."
2. Absolute zero, which is, um, real coldlike.
3. USA! USA! or, um.. Earth! Earth!
4. things accelerate due to gravity as they fall.
5. gas-o-rama-lama-ding-dong
6. doppler effect
7. vacuum?
8. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
9. ion?
10. The mass of each thingy and the distance between 'em.

Eavan said...

1. Hydrogen. Helium. Oxygen. Iron. And much more!
2. Zero Kelvin. -273 Celsius.
4. That's a falling object's rate of acceleration in Earth's gravity.
6. Doppler shift
7. Gas
9. An ion
10. The mass of the two objects and the distance between them.

Michael5000 said...

1. The sun is, yes, a mass of incandescent gas. Five points for that answer, stopping there, for the dork factor. More precisely, it is made out of hydrogen and helium, with another 2% of trace elements. I'm taking anything that emphasizes the Hydrogen and Helium, and changed my mind about penalizing for mentioning other elements. "Mostly exploding hydrogen" is also a correct answer.

2. Molecular motion would essentially (although not literally) cease at "absolute zero," which is 0 K and about -273 C or -460 F.

3. Things you might find 1 AU from the sun include Barney's Gas 'n' Go, the Earth, us, Dug's Ipod Touch, Nichim, and The United States of America.

4. Objects in Earth's gravity well accelerate at 9.8 m/s^2, minus air resistance of course. Michael5000 also stops making hard quizzes at that speed, but no points for saying so.

5. Sigh. The everyday term for the conversion of liquid to gas is BOILING. But now I'll check up on all y'all's various highly plausible alternatives:

sublimation: no, that's the transformation from solid to gas.

digestion: droll, but no.

transpiration: no, that's plant sweat.

vaporization: yes!

gasification: no!

6. Doppler Shift!

7. That phase of matter would be a "gas."

8. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

9. An atom or a particle that has a net charge is an "ion."

10. To figure out the force of gravity between two objects you need the mass of each of them and the distance between them. (Technically, all you need is the product of the two masses and the distance between them, but to get the product of the two masses, well....)

Michael5000 said...

Which brings triumph and honor to Morgan and the Unwise Owl, both of whom nailed it for 100 points. DrSchnell is next in the parade with 80 points, and Ben and Nichim nipped at his heels with an unlikely tie at 78 points.

Elaine said...

Shouldn't there be a Special Mention for those who did not get One Single Correct Answer?

Michael5000 said...

Well, everybody got at least two, with certain allowances.

Aviatrix said...

1. Hydrogen, mostly.
2. 0K, i.e. -273C
3. Earth
4. Acceleration due to Earth gravity
5. huh? Evaporation is the term *I* use every day. I guess you could call it vapourization, too, with or without the U.
6. Doppler effect
7. gas
8. pauli exclusion principle
9. an ion
10. masses of the objects, distance separating their centres, and mass distribution of the objects around their centres (although you're probably considering them as point masses, and therefor just want mass 1, mass 2 and r between the points).

Aviatrix said...

Darn. I'm too late to play and I thought Heisenberg was the "observation affects the observable" and Pauli was the "can't have the same four quantum numbers."

Bleah.

Jennifer said...

Just looking for a little illumination here--why doesn't evaporation count? My understanding is that it is one of two kinds of conversion of a liquid to a gas (the other being boiling), but then I never really took physics....

Michael5000 said...

Jennifer: Practically, evaporation doesn't count because I ruled it out. Technically, evaporation isn't a phase change, but a state where one phase change (boiling) is slowly prevailing over another (condensation).

Voron X said...

Old Quiz, but here goes:
1. Hydrogen and Helium
2. Zero degrees Kelvin/Absolute Zero/-273 degrees C
3. The Earth('s average Orbit)
4. Objects accellerate toward the Earth
5. Vaporization
6. Doppler Effect
7. Liquid.
8. Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
9. Ion
10. Mass of first object, mass of second object, and distance between their centers of mass.

Voron X said...

damn - I had gas and changed it to liquid because of the term "weak cohesive forces" (while forgetting about "indefinite volume") because I was thinking that gases don't really have any cohesive forces.