Introduction to Light

Today we started the class off with listing what we know and what we want to know about light. The class mostly knew that light:
-Reflects
-Comes from the sun, light bulbs, and fire
-Travels fast
-And it doesn’t need a medium to travel.
And for Nina:

We also talked about convex, concave, and flat mirrors. The convex mirror made the soccer ball appear smaller than the original and right side up. The concave mirror made the ball appear larger than the original, slightly distorted, and also right side up. The flat mirror made the ball appear exactly the same as the original.

Measuring the Speed of Light

Galileo

Two people would stand far away from each other with covered lanterns. One uncovers their lantern, and then the other immediately uncovers theirs on seeing the light from the first.

Romer

Romer was a Danish astronomer who had made a systematic study of Io, one of the moons of Jupiter.

Michelson

Albert Michelson used an ingenious arrangement of mirrors. The light reflecting back from the concave mirror could only be seen by an observer if the octagonal mirror was rotating at certain speeds.

More recently, astronauts have attached a mirror to a rock on the moon; scientists on earth can aim a laser at this mirror and measure the travel time of the laser pulse.
The current accepted value of the speed of light is approximated as 3.00x10^8m/s (c) in a vacuum.
We ended the class with starting a handout called Speed of Light Problems.
Example: How long would it take for light to travel 3.00x10^4 meters?
d=3.00x10^4m

v=3.00x10^8m/s

t=?

v=d/t

t=d/v

t=3.00x10^4m / 3.00x10^8 m/s

t=0.0001s

t=1.00x10^-4s

The next person to write the blog will be the person with the smallest feet!

P.S. I'm sorry about the long space after my post. I couldn't get rid of it. And the equation ($) wasn't working for me either.