Hello all,
I recently began to take a couple of science courses at my college just to zoom through my degree as quickly as possible, but I found myself becoming very interested in everything I was reading. Meteorology has been particularly fun, but I find the book a little lacking. I think it was made for people that have a general knowledge of science, which I have none of really. It left me asking the following questions throughout the chapters and I was wondering if anyone has some answers for them. Any quotes you see are actual text from the book.
1. "The greater the rate of vibration or rotation, the higher the temperature of the substance." They used an example of a metal rod with one end in a camp fire that gradually heats all the way to the other end. Does this mean that in that case, the molecules within the rod are vibrating? Because later on in the book it says the molecules actually aren't moving and that confuses me.
2. "Hotter bodies emit more energy than cooler ones." I was under the impression that heat was nothing but a by-product of transforming energy. If this is true, does that mean hotter bodies have more energy transformation than colder ones and do we simply measure the rate of transformation by this by-product that is created?
3. When a form of energy transforms into another form of energy, what exactly is transforming? The very molecules of the object?
4. Is movement a transformation of one energy into another?
5. Does every letter/Greek symbol in scientific notation mean the same thing? For example, will T always stand for temperature or can it sometimes stand for something like time?
6. Why does scientific notation involve so many Greek symbols?
7. Is there a formula for Farenheit to Kelvin or do you always have to change Fahrenheit to Celsius, then onward to Kelvin?
8. Why do photons at shorter wavelengths have more energy than photons at longer wavelengths?
9. Black bodies are a theoretical mass that emit the maximum possible wavelength. So theoretically, what would the maximum intenstiy of a wavelength be? Is there even a measurement for it or is it simply infinite?
10. Why are some gray bodies(such as water) better at radiating energy than others(such as aluminum)?
11. In the case of convection, the air closest to the earth heats and expands, causing buoyancy and making it rise. But is the air in the top of the stratosphere is closest to the sun, why would it not heat first and simply stay at the top?
12. I thought we had not explored past the Milky Way yet, but I saw a picture of the galaxy in my book. Have we truly gone far enough out to take pictures of the Milky Way from outside the galaxy?
13. What is the exact definition of electromagnetic energy?
14. "Note that there is nothing unique about the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum other than the fact that our eyes and nervous systems have evoled to see this energy." Does that mean that we could one day evolve to see ultraviolet, X-rays, etc? If so, do we have theories of what it would look like?
Sorry for the huge wall of text, I'm just really curious about this stuff. Thanks for reading!
