Category Archives: Earth Science

Clocks and Time

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Time is weird, and clocks are all around us because of our relationship to time, calendars, that allow social meetings.

Today we got a historical gem on YouTube: the history of Big Ben. Many many men (women seem not to exist) have been involved in this UK project: all for a tower, a broken bell, and zillions of photographs taken by tourists ….. of a CLOCK.

Big ben had to send exact time to Greenwich. Why? Because of the Oº meridian and counting time zones from that line, but?

It sounds like “time” is much more complicated than “telling time” on your watch.

But what is time? Why is there a yesterday, a now and a tomorrow?
The channel Minute Physics tries to explain:

Time in relation to the 2nd law of thermo dynamics:

Or Ted-Ed gives another look:

And if you want to dig deeper: here’s the discovery channel take on time as it is seen and understood today. At this time, we are far from the Big Ben saga. Take a deep breath before diving into these new concepts!

Which brings us back to time for the individual born one day, dead another. Should we take care of the time given to us? Should we take care of our planet to give time to others? Should we give birth to other humans so that they too can have a life time? Should we allow ourselves to waste time if such a thing exists? Are these considerations important?

Nuclear Energy fusion and fission for grade 9-10’s

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In nuclear energy, we have two choices: fission, breaking up large atoms such as Uranium, and fusion: sticking together or fusing very small atoms such as Hydrogen. In grade 9, and 10 Science students learn about the basics of such energy. In History 12, students learn of the awful consequences of nuclear war.

Fission is the technology that was developed during the Second World War and wasn’t chosen for least pollution but to develop bombs and missiles. Fission could have been developed in a way greener fashion. Fusion is a hope for the future because of its lesser polluting by-products. After all we all know about the energy of the sun that is one great enormous fusion ball. I have put together a bunch of videos here to illustrate nuclear energy. I hope you will find them as interesting as I did.

FUSION A GREAT HOPE FOR THE NEAR FUTURE:

http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1716

NEW WAY OF USING FISSION: Taylor Wilson

VERITASERUM
The sun has been producing light for about five billion years but where does all its energy come from? The most common idea is that the sun is burning gas – like a giant fireball in the sky. If this were true, the sun would have gone out long ago. So how is the sun actually fuelling itself? It is converting its own mass into energy. By combining protons (the nucleus of hydrogen) into helium, it squeezes some mass into energy – 4.3 billion kg per second. It is Einstein’s famous E=mc^2 which gives us the quantitative relationship between mass and energy, where c is the speed of light.

MINUTE PHYSICS:

THE GREAT DISASTER OF TCHERNOBYL (FISSION) as prepared by Seeker
Consequences:
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UN VLOGUEUR SUISSE SUR LE NUCLEAIRE EN SUISSE: Vincent vidéos