Cayla+Clawson

I thought it was interesting to learn that the top layer of the track is textured for traction and the bottom is a shock absorber. I've found that some tracks are bouncier than others, and I'm curious if that's just due to age or manufacturing or both. It was also interesting to learn that the rubbers on the track are virgin, meaning they've never been used before. I wonder how that effects the quality of the rubber versus if it had been used before. The temperature increase of the turf is relative to class because of heat absorption going on in the polymers on the field, due to the dark dye of the blades of grass.

I read the article on solar power entitled, "How does solar power work?" I found it interesting that silicon crystals have to be grown for solar power. It's unfortunate that solar power is so expensive. Even though we can use newer materials with cheaper crystals, such as copper-indium-gallium-selenide, it's still expensive and not as efficient. The article said it was about five times more expensive than the energy that people pay for in their homes. It was also interesting to play with the idea that we could create solar cells that work like plants. That could rid our society of many problems like global warming because plants take CO2 out of the air, and we could then use that CO2 as fuel.

The content of this article related directly to what we're learning in class. Einstein's explanation that increase in frequency is transferred to the electron so that it increases speed when it's ejected is just like what we've been learning in class. The concept that a photon has enough energy to boot an electron out of a metal seems strange because we've learned the stable and definitive state of structures of atoms. I thought it was very interesting to read about Einstein's theories about traveling at the speed of light. It'd be strange to see a things never change their image be traveling at the speed of light, yet they are changing in reality. In my eighth grade geometry class we researched a little about black holes, and I remember that supposedly if you are watching someone that is traveling into a black hole, you will never see them change or disappear because once they've reached a certain point in the black hole's pull, the light they are emitting doesn't travel fast enough to escape the pull of the black hole, thus it appears as if they are staying in one spot. This information counteracts with what the article said about the speed of light being the fastest speed in our universe, so I wonder which is true...

__The Many Looks of the Periodic Table__ I found it interesting to learn that there is more than one way to represent the elements, but after learning more about the other visuals I can see why the traditional periodic table is the most commonly used. Maybe the other ones confuse me just because I’m not accustomed to how they work, but they aren’t organized as well as the traditional table and have more flaws. I think the most inconvenient one to use would be the Periodic Round Table because it’s 3-D and not as readily accessible. Additionally, in classrooms each student would have to have their own rather than look at one big one on the wall or in their planner. I personally like the traditional table the most and can’t see scientists using another representation anytime soon.