The Role of Physics in our Daily Life Essay Assignment Sample

INTRODUCTION

We are in the era of science and technology, and the application of science to everyday life has greatly improved it. Even in the days before science was widely known, people's lives were nonetheless guided by the theories of many scientific disciplines. When we start a fire, it's a chemical process; when we eat and digest food, it's a biological process; when we walk on Earth, it's governed by physical laws; when an earthquake happens, it's a seismic activity; and when we discuss the various terrains and gems of the Earth's surface, it has to do with geology. No one of our daily activities defines one particular scientific field above another. In a similar way, physics influences our daily actions and plays a part in many of the items and activities we do. Here, in this science assignment, we'll talk about how physics affects how our daily activities function and helps us complete our chores, errands, and duties efficiently.

BODY

Due to the fact that it deals with concepts such as matter, force, energy, and motion, physics is regarded as a natural science. We can state that physics investigates how the cosmos operates, how Earth revolves around the sun, how lightning strikes, how our refrigerator operates, and many more tasks that are relevant to daily life. In a nutshell, physics describes how everything around us functions. Nothing can be separated from science, and the miracles of Physics are an integral part of our world. Numerous items in our environment operate according to the rules of physics. We can utilize our understanding of physics to explain our various actions. Here, we'll talk about a few instances that will help us understand how physics affects our daily lives.

Walking

The simple act of walking involves many physics ideas. It involves the ideas of weight, friction, the gravitational law, Newton's three laws of inertia, and potential and kinetic energy. We actually behave like an inverted pendulum as we walk. Our foot becomes our axis when we place it on the ground, and our mass is then centered in our belly, describing the shape of an arc. When we place a foot on the ground, we really apply weight, or w=mg, and push backward. In reaction to our weight, the ground exerts an opposing, vertical force on our leg, which slows us down. This slowing process continues until our leg is closest to our belly. Kinetic energy is at its peak while the leg is moving, and potential energy is at its peak when the leg is closest to the belly or forms an arc. The stored potential energy is changed into kinetic energy when a subsequent action is taken, and so on. Because not all potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy, we swing as an imperfect pendulum. Only 65% of the energy needed to move forward comes from potential energy that has been saved; the other 35% comes from biochemical processes. In Kunzig (2001).

Physically speaking, when we exert force and, as a result of that, travel a distance, we truly accomplish work when we walk. This is because W=F*S. Newton's three laws of motion are used when walking. According to the first law of motion, a body stays at rest unless a force is applied to it. Inertia is greatest when we are at rest. The most force is required by the body to break out of its condition of inertia, which occurs when we begin to walk. When we take our initial stride, energy is transmitted from our feet to our upper bodies, and we begin to move. As we walk, inertia constantly changes, increasing when we place our foot on the ground and decreasing when we lift it up. In accordance with the second rule of motion, which states that acceleration is directly proportional to the force we use or exert when walking, our acceleration will rise as our force increases. In accordance with the third law of motion, when we step on the ground, we exert force on it, and as a response, the ground applies a reactive vertical force to the body. (2011) Patricia Ann Kramer

Cooking

Physics' field of thermodynamics deals with heat, temperature, and the work it causes. Energy can be moved from one medium to another in the form of heat or heat transfer. Heat moves from a hotter surface to a cooler surface for heat transfer. When we place a pan on a burning fire with water or another object inside of it, the energy in the stove's flame reaches the cold pan and begins to transfer heat to it, making the pan hooter. Conduction is the name of this phenomenon. Convection is the mechanism through which molecules in gases and liquids move. Once the water molecules at the pan's base have heated up sufficiently to become hotter than the molecules surrounding them, they begin to move toward the water's surface as the pan is heated. Due to reduced heat energy, the water molecules on the surface are cooler and heavier from hot water. Thus they begin to move downward. This process continues until all the water is at the same temperature (ouchmath, 2011)

The loss of both mass and energy during cooking makes it an open system. The zeroth rule of thermodynamics states that energy should be conserved. In our example, the energy lost by the flame is utilized by the pot to heat the water, preserving the overall amount of energy. By utilizing the kinetic energy of molecules to bring about chemical changes in food, a pressure cooker satisfies the law of thermodynamics that spontaneous works are performed as a result of work energy. 2013 (Lethbridge)

Cutting Fruits and Vegetables

We never consider the role of physics in a basic operation like cutting fruit and vegetables, yet it must be. We need to apply pressure to the knife in order to cut anything. We may simply cut an object when we apply more pressure. In other words, pressure is inversely and directly dependent on both area and force. In layman's words, we can state that if we apply greater force, we can cut an object with ease, but if we apply the same force with a knife with thicker edges, we cannot. Experience has shown us that knives with smaller surface-area edges can assist in quickly cutting an object. Similar to how a sharper knife makes cutting easier, Due to the blunt knife's rough edges, there is greater friction, which makes cutting an object challenging.

Seeing

We should be grateful to God for giving us eyes. By means of this tiny organ, we may view the wonders of the world. The main idea is that we are discussing biology when we discuss body parts and their functions. We fail to see, however, that the operations of the components of our bodies are likewise governed by the laws of physics and chemistry. If we discuss sight, we learn that our eyes function as a camera to view the world around us. Our eyes' convex lens converges or concentrates light. The cornea and lens in our eyes focus light when it enters. The iris regulates the quantity of light entering the eye and produces a true, inverted image on the retina similar to that of a camera. Photoreceptors transform the light's image into an electrical signal, which is then transmitted via the optic nerve to the brain's visual cortex. The vision center analyses the electric signal and sets it up so that it may be seen by the eye in its original form. The amount of light reflected from that object is what allows us to view the image. We cannot see in the dark because of this. Edwardson (2005)

The eye is able to distinguish between various objects' colors and shapes. When light, which has seven hues, strikes an object, like a red book, it absorbs all the colors and reflects the red color. This makes it easier for us to understand why the book's cover is red. Because white objects reflect all hues when light strikes them, they appear white (we also regard light as white light). Similarly to this, a black item seems black because it completely absorbs the light that strikes it and does not reflect any of it. (2010) Pappas

Opening and Closing Doors

Hinged doors' opening and shutting are likewise governed by physics. Torque is the phenomenon involved in door opening and closing. The amount of torque needed to rotate an object around its axis or fulcrum. When opening a door using the handle that is furthest away from the hinge, we can simply accomplish so by creating torque using the formula ®=F*l sin, where l is the distance between the hinge and the door knob or handle. (AP Only) Lesson 27a: Torque, 2013)

If the knob is close to the hinge, more torque must be applied, which results in less angular acceleration. Greater angular acceleration is produced when force is applied perpendicular to the door. By exerting pressure on the doorknob, we may cause the door to revolve around its axis and work with the torque principle. When we open the door clockwise, the torque is positive; when we open it anticlockwise, the torque is negative. Broholom (2007)

CONCLUSION

We have only seen a small portion of physics here, but this discipline governs all of life. Many natural phenomena are governed by physics, which also defines many manufactured items like cars, refrigerators, microwaves, and escalators. Consequently, we might state that physics governs our universe.

Works Cited

The Field of Nuclear Physics Assignment Sample

The branch of physics known as nuclear physics investigates the components and interactions of atomic nuclei. Nuclear physics has a variety of uses outside of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, including those in medicine (nuclear medicine, magnetic resonance imaging), materials engineering (ion implantation), archaeology, and other fields (radiocarbon dating).

Nuclear physics gave rise to particle physics, which was previously referred to under the same umbrella because of this.

The earliest proof that the atom had interior structure came from J. J. Thomson's discovery of the electron. J. J. Thomson's "plum pudding" concept, in which the atom was a huge positively charged ball with little negatively charged electrons lodged inside of it, was the recognised model of the atom at the turn of the 20th century. Alpha, beta, and gamma radiation are three different forms of radiation that are emitted by atoms that were discovered by physicists at the turn of the century. James Chadwick and Lise Meitner's experiments from 1911 and Otto Hahn's from 1914 both revealed that the beta decay spectrum was continuous rather than discrete. In other words, rather of the definite quantities of energies seen in gamma and alpha decays, electrons were released from the atom with a variety of energies. At the time, this presented a challenge for nuclear physics because it suggested that energy was not conserved in these decays.

Albert Einstein first proposed the concept of mass-energy equivalence in 1905. Although Becquerel, Pierre, and Marie Curie's research on radioactivity came before this, it wasn't until the nucleus's smaller subatomic particles, known as nucleons, were discovered that the source of radioactivity's energy could be identified.

Rutherford’s Team Discovers the Nucleus

"Radiation of the Particle from Radium in Passing Through Matter"[1] was published in 1907 by Ernest Rutherford. In a submission to the Royal Society[2], Geiger expanded on this work with experiments he and Rutherford had carried out, passing a particle through air, aluminium foil, and gold leaf. Geiger and Marsden published additional work in 1909[3], and in 1910 Geiger published significantly more material. [4] Rutherford presented the new theory of the atomic nucleus as we now understand it to the Royal Society in 1911–1912. He also explained the experiments at the time.

The crucial science assignment experiment that led to this discovery was carried out in 1909 by Ernest Rutherford's team, in which Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden shot alpha particles (helium nuclei) at a thin layer of gold foil. According to the plum pudding model, the alpha particles should exit the foil with at most a little bending of their paths. Rutherford came up with the notion to tell his team to search for something that he was startled to see in action: a few particles were scattered at extreme angles, even going backwards in some cases. He compared it to shooting a bullet at tissue paper, which would cause it to deflect. The discovery eventually produced the Rutherford model of the atom, according to which an atom has a very small, extremely dense nucleus that contains the majority of its mass and is made up of heavy, positively charged particles with embedded electrons to balance the charge. This model was developed as a result of Rutherford's analysis of the data in 1911. (since the neutron was unknown). As an illustration, in this model (which is not the modern one), the nucleus of nitrogen-14 contained 21 particles total—14 protons, 7 electrons—and was encircled by an additional 7 electrons in orbit.

The Rutherford model performed admirably up until 1929, when Franco Rasetti conducted nuclear spin studies at the California Institute of Technology. In the Rutherford model of nitrogen-14, 20 of the total 21 nuclear particles were supposed to pair up to cancel each other's spins, and the final odd particle was supposed to leave the nucleus with a net spin of 1/2. By 1925, it was known that protons and electrons had a spin of 1/2. But Rasetti found that nitrogen-14 has a spin of 1.

James Chadwick Discovers the Neutron

In 1932, Chadwick discovered that radiation that Walther Bothe, Herbert L. Becker, Irene, and Fredric Joliot-Curie had detected was actually caused by a neutral particle he named the neutron, which has a mass similar to the proton (following a suggestion about the need for such a particle, by Rutherford). The same year, Dmitri Ivanenko proposed that neutrons are actually spin-1/2 particles, that the nucleus contains neutrons to account for the mass that cannot be attributed to protons, and that there are only protons and neutrons in the nucleus. The one unpaired proton and one unpaired neutron in this scenario each contribute a spin of 1/2 in the same direction, for a final total spin of 1, which directly solves the spin of nitrogen-14 problem.

With the discovery of the neutron, scientists were finally able to determine the percentage of binding energy present in each nucleus by comparing the nuclear mass to the mass of the protons and neutrons that made up the nucleus. When nuclear reactions were monitored and differences between nuclear masses were calculated in this manner, it was discovered that they agreed very closely (within 1% as of 1934) with Einstein's calculation of the equivalence of mass and energy.

Yukawa’s Meson Postulated to Bind Nuclei

To explain why the nucleus remains intact, Hideki Yukawa put forward the first significant hypothesis of the strong force in 1935. A hypothetical particle, later referred to as a meson, acted as a medium for a force between all nucleons, including protons and neutrons, in the Yukawa interaction. This force provided an explanation for why nuclei were resistant to proton repulsion and for why the attractive strong force had a smaller effective field than electromagnetic repulsion between protons. It was later discovered that the pi meson has the same characteristics as Yukawa's particle.

The contemporary atom model was finished with Yukawa's works. The strong nuclear force, unless it becomes too powerful, holds the tightly packed ball of neutrons and protons that makes up the centre of the atom together. Unstable nuclei can undergo beta decay, in which they eject an electron, or alpha decay, in which they emit an energetic helium nucleus (or positron). If the resultant nucleus is still excited after one of these decays, it may transition to its ground state by generating high-energy photons (gamma decay).

The study of the weak and strong nuclear forces—the latter of which Enrico Fermi explained in 1934 through the Fermi interaction—led scientists to collide nuclei and electrons at ever-increasing energy. The standard model of particle physics, which unifies the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, is the science of particle physics, which emerged from this research.

Modern Nuclear Physics

Main articles: Liquid-drop model and Shell model

Since heavy nuclei can have hundreds of nucleons, they can roughly be viewed as classical systems rather than quantum-mechanical ones. The nucleus in the resulting liquid-drop model has energy that comes from both surface tension and electrical repulsion of the protons. Numerous characteristics of nuclei, such as the overall trend of binding energy with respect to mass number and the nuclear fission event, can be replicated by the liquid-drop model.

However, quantum-mechanical effects are superimposed on this classical picture and can be explained by the nuclear shell model, which was largely created by Maria Goeppert-Mayer. Because their outer shells are filled, nuclei with specific numbers of neutrons and protons—the "magic numbers" 2, 8, 20, 50, 82, 126, etc.—are more stable than others.

There have also been other, more complex models for the nucleus put forth, such as the interacting boson model, which has pairs of neutrons and protons interact as bosons, similar to Cooper pairs of electrons.

The study of nuclei under extreme circumstances, such as high spin and excitation energy, is a significant portion of modern nuclear physics research. Additionally, high neutron-to-proton ratios or forms (like rugby balls) are possible for nuclei. Using ion beams from an accelerator and artificially produced fusion or nucleon transfer reactions, experimenters can produce such nuclei. There are indications that these experiments have led to a phase transition from normal nuclear matter to a new state, the quark-gluon plasma, in which the quarks mix with one another rather than being segregated in triplets as they are in neutrons and protons. Beams with even higher energies can be used to create nuclei at very high temperatures.

Modern Topics in Nuclear Physics

Spontaneous changes from one nuclide to another: nuclear decay

Main article: Radioactivity

There are around 256 stable isotopes total, and 80 elements have at least one of them. Stable isotopes are defined as those that have never been seen to degrade. Thousands more described isotopes exist, however they are unstable. These radioisotopes may be unstable and degrade across a wide range of timescales, from a few hundredths of a second to many billions of years.

For instance, a nucleus may be unstable and eventually decay if it has either too few or too many neutrons. For instance, within a few seconds of being generated, an oxygen-16 atom (8 protons, 8 neutrons) is transformed from a nitrogen-16 atom (7 protons, 9 neutrons) in a process known as beta decay. The weak nuclear force causes a neutron in the nitrogen nucleus to decay in this way, converting it into a proton, electron, and antineutrino. Because it now contains eight protons instead of the prior seven that made it nitrogen, the atom undergoes transmutation into another element (which makes it oxygen).

When a radioactive element undergoes alpha decay, a helium nucleus (2 protons and 2 neutrons) is released, along with another element and helium-4. The formation of a stable element frequently occurs after numerous phases of this kind, including other forms of decays.

A nucleus emits a gamma ray during gamma decay when it transitions from an excited state to a lower state. Then it becomes stable. The process has no impact on the element.

There may be further, stranger decays (see the main article). For instance, internal conversion decay, which produces high-speed electrons but is not beta decay and does not transform one element into another (unlike beta decay), uses the energy from an excited nucleus to eject one of the inner orbital electrons from the atom.

Nuclear Fusion

Main article: Nuclear fusion

It is conceivable for the strong force to fuse together two low mass nuclei when they are in extremely close proximity to one another. Nuclear fusion can only occur at extremely high temperatures or high densities because it requires a lot of energy to move the nuclei close enough together for the strong or nuclear forces to act. When two nuclei are sufficiently close to one another, the strong force overcomes their electromagnetic attraction and forces them to fuse together to form a new nucleus. Because the binding energy per nucleon rises with mass number up until nickel-62, the energy produced when light nuclei fuse together is extremely enormous. Four protons are fused into a helium nucleus, together with two positrons and two neutrinos, to create stars like our sun. The term "thermonuclear runaway" refers to the uncontrolled fusing of hydrogen into helium. Several research institutions are now working to find an economically feasible way to use the energy from a controlled fusion reaction (see JET and ITER).

The binding energy per nucleon for nuclei heavier than nickel-62 reduces as the mass number increases. Therefore, if a heavy nucleus splits into two lighter ones, energy could be released. Nuclear fission is the term for this atom-splitting process.

Alpha decay can be viewed as a particular variety of spontaneous nuclear fission. The four particles that make up the alpha particle are extremely closely connected to one another, making the creation of this nucleus in fission particularly likely. This mechanism results in a highly asymmetrical fission.

A self-igniting sort of neutron-initiated fission can be produced for some of the heaviest nuclei that emit neutrons during fission and that also readily absorb neutrons to initiate fission, in a process known as a chain reaction. (Chain reactions were recognised in chemistry before they were in physics, and many common events, such as fires and chemical explosions, are examples of them.) Nuclear power plants and fission-type nuclear weapons, like the two that the United States deployed against Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the conclusion of World War II, use the fission or "nuclear" chain-reaction to produce neutrons. While it is possible for heavy nuclei like uranium and thorium to spontaneously fission, this is significantly less likely than alpha decay.

There must be a critical mass of the element present in a certain location under specific circumstances for a neutron-initiated chain reaction to happen (these conditions slow and conserve neutrons for the reactions). There is only one known instance of a naturally occurring nuclear fission reactor, and it was operational over 1.5 billion years ago in two locations of Oklo, Gabon, Africa. Radioactive decay is responsible for almost half of the heat emitted from the Earth's core, according to measurements of natural neutrino emission. If any of this comes from fission chain reactions is unknown, though.

Production of Heavy Elements

The hypothesis holds that the existence of particles as we know them today was finally made feasible as the Universe cooled following the big bang. Protons (hydrogen) and electrons were the most prevalent particles produced in the big bang that are still readily observable to us today (in equal numbers). While some heavier elements were produced as a result of proton collisions, the majority of the heavy elements we observe today were produced in stars during a succession of fusion stages, including the proton-proton chain, the CNO cycle, and the triple-alpha process. During a star's evolution, heavier elements are produced one at a time. Energy is only released in fusion processes that take place below this threshold since the binding energy per nucleon peaks around iron. Nature uses the process of neutron capture because it is more energy efficient than fusion to produce heavier nuclei. The lack of charge in neutrons makes them easily absorbed by a nucleus. Either the rapid, or r process, or the slow neutron capture method—commonly referred to as the s process—is used to produce the heavy elements. The s process takes hundreds to thousands of years to achieve the heaviest elements of lead and bismuth in thermally pulsing stars (also known as AGB, or asymptotic giant branch stars). Because of the high temperature, high neutron flux, and ejected matter circumstances, it is believed that the r process occurs in supernova explosions. Particularly near the so-called waiting spots, which correspond to more stable nuclides with closed neutron shells, these stellar conditions cause the subsequent neutron captures to occur very quickly, involving particularly neutron-rich species that eventually beta-decay to heavier elements (magic numbers). The r procedure normally takes a few seconds to complete.