magnetic field on earth

Earth has a magnetic field. If you imagine a gigantic bar magnet inside of Earth, you'll have a pretty good idea what Earth's magnetic field is shaped like. Of course, Earth DOESN'T have a giant bar magnet inside it; instead, our planet's magnetic field is made by swirling motions of molten iron in Earth's outer core. Earth has two geographic poles: the North Pole and the South Pole. They are the places on Earth's surface that Earth's imaginary spin axis passes through. Our planet also has two magnetic poles: the North Magnetic Pole and the South Magnetic Pole. The magnetic poles are near, but not quite in the same places as, the geographic poles. The needle in a compass points towards a magnetic pole. When you are far away from a pole a compass is very helpful if you want to find your way around. The compass needle points pretty much due North (or South if you live in the Southern Hemisphere!). However, if you are near either pole, a compass becomes useless. It points towards the magnetic pole, not the true geographic pole. Those two poles could be quite far apart, and in different directions. Think how hard it must have been for early explorers to find their way around in the Arctic and Antarctic without being able to use a compass.

 Earth's geographic poles and magnetic poles

Earth's magnetic poles are actually pretty far from its geographic poles. In 2005, the North Magnetic Pole (NMP) was about 810 km (503 miles) from the Geographic North Pole. The NMP was in the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. The South Magnetic Pole (SMP) was about 2,826 km (1,756 miles) from the Geographic South Pole. The SMP was off the coast of Antarctica in the direction of Australia.

Did you notice how we said where the magnetic poles were in 2005? Guess what; the magnetic poles actually move around! Remember, swirling motions of molten metal in Earth's outer core make our planet's magnetic field. Those swirling motions are changing all the time. That means the magnetic field is changing, so the magnetic poles move! In the first part of the 20th century, the
poles usually moved about 9 km (5.6 miles) per year. Then, around 1970, they started moving faster. In recent years they have been moving about 41 km (25 miles) per year!
Sometimes Earth's magnetic field even flips over! The North and South Magnetic Poles trade places. This doesn't happen very often; usually at least a few hundred thousand years pass between these flips.

 What is the aurora?

The aurora (Northern and Southern Lights) mostly happen near the magnetic poles. That's because the charged particles (mostly electrons and protons) that cause the aurora follow along magnetic field lines towards the magnetic poles. When the particles run into air in Earth's atmosphere, the air glows in pretty colors - making the beautiful aurora!

The ENERGY BALL REPORT

By: Yasamin Abbaszadegan

For: Mr. Chung

Feb 9, 2012

In a series circuit the light bulbs are connected to the energy source (battery) by one component (wire). There is only one path in a series circuit in which the current can flow. The current in a series circuit goes through every component in the circuit and it stays constant. (2) There are some advantage and disadvantages to this way of designing. For instance if the circuit opens or closes by a switch or a bulb burns out the entire circuit would operate or stop operating. This is a disadvantage because for example if an apartment's electrical system uses series circuit for their lighting, if one light bulb burn out, all other electrical devices in the house would stop working as well. A parallel circuit is a little different from the series circuit; it has multiple paths for the current to flow. To make a parallel circuit, two or more components are connected in parallel. At least, it has two light bulbs or other electrical device.(2)  This design is more efficient to use in households because if a certain place in the circuit was opened not every electrical device in the circuit would stop working but only the switch for the specific bulb would stop working.

In our class every group were given an energy ball that had a tiny circuit inside it and had two metal plates on each side. We had made many experiments on how to make the ball lighten and make sounds. Conductivity of materials which means having atoms with loosely bound electrons that can be easily transferred to neighboring atoms, are important in success of such experiments. (1) We had observed that some materials make the ball work and some don't, for instance when the tips of two fingers or the palms of a person's hand touched the metal plates, the ball lightened but when we touched the plates by the back of our hands or by the hair on our hands it didn’t work or worked very weakly. The reason that the ball was activated was due to the conductivity created within the circuit, through hands and bodies of students.  Dampness and moisture on hands creates better conductivity, while dryness on hands makes poor conductivity and in these cases the balls were not activated.  Where materials have atoms with tightly held electrons that are not transferred anywhere, they become insulators. (2)

I understood that I had worked on my report not ahead of time and I had worked on it in the last minute giving me less time. I also didn’t review the sheets that the teacher had given so that I would ask some questions that I had confronted while writing this report. "PHYSICS concepts and connections" and "Hyperphysics" were the two references I used to write this report.

References:

(1)     Nave, C.R., (1011) Hyperphysics, Georgia State University.

(2)     Nowikow, l, & Heimbecker, B., (2001) Physics, Toronto/Vancouver, Canada: Irwing Publishing

Categories of Physics

It is good to know the Categories of Physics that are studied,

• Particle Physics
• Astrophysics
• Theoretical Physics
• Experimental/Applied Physics
• Mechanical Physics
• Quantum Physics (Quantum Mechanics)
• Bio Physics
• Optical Physics

My first post - My love of Physics

My love of physics is never ending!

I want to share all the exciting stuff about physics and my learning experience with all you people out there... :)