Mandy Bringhurst

PHYS 1010

Physics Final Project

Southern Cross

Beta Centauri Gamma Crucis

Alpha Centauri
Alpha Crucis

These stars help to make up the constellations of Centaurus and Crux. Their distances

from earth are: Alpha Centauri – 4.367 Light Years, Beta Centauri – 391.4 Light Years, Alpha

Crucis – 322.9 Light Years, and Gamma Crucis – 88.71 Light Years. In comparison to the radius of

the sun Alpha Centauri is 1.22 times bigger, Beta Centauri is 8.6 times bigger, Alpha Crucis is 7.8

times bigger, and Gamma Crucis is 84.02 times bigger. In relationship to the sun Alpha Centauri

is 1.519 times more luminous, Beta Centauri is 41,700 times more luminous, Alpha Crucis is

25,000 times more luminous, and Gamma Crucis is 820 times more luminous. This data means

that Gamma Crucis is the biggest star and Beta Centauri is the furthest away from the Earth and

the most luminous star.

 E=mc^2 is the equation that Einstein created to explain the relationship between mass

and energy. In this equation E stands for the energy that any mass has at rest, m stands for

mass, and c stands for the speed of light. E and m are both variables and c is a constant. The

value of c in scientific notation is 3x10^8 m/s^-1. Mass and Energy are related. They are

basically interchangeable because they can each be converted into one another. That

statement is true because when you look at the equation the speed of light squared is a large

number so a small amount of mass can equal up to a lot of energy.

I agree with the second statement that states “objects fall at the same speed (if no air

resistance) and weight doesn’t matter.” The equation d=g(t^2)/2 supports this because g is a

constant of the acceleration of gravity, so it doesn’t even require the weight of an object to

know how far it is going to fall in a certain time frame.

The equation v=gt also supports the same statement that the last equation did. Velocity

is just the speed and direction of an object. This equation also does not have a variable that

tells you what the weight of the object is. The force of gravity is a constant on earth for any size

object.

The reason it took us so long to figure out that all objects fall at the same speed is

because we weren’t able to test it in an environment with no gravity until we successfully

landed on the moon. The physical property of mass that makes it fall at the same speed no

matter the size is inertia. Inertia means that an object at rest will stay at rest or an object in

motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Inertia applies to all objects,

so in the absence of air resistance, it would make all objects fall at the same rate.
 The law of the conservation of energy is that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Meaning that energy can be transformed into another state but can’t be lost in that

transformation. One example of this in the real world is when water is heated up and turns into

steam, the energy isn’t being lost it is just transforming the liquid into a gas and heating the

surrounding area. Another example is a teeter totter, when one person pushes down on one

side it forces the other side up, no energy is being created or destroyed. The third example is

when a person runs into another person and they either fall over or start moving. The first

persons kinetic energy gets transferred to the other person.

Fermi’s Paradox is that there is a high probability of other civilizations in the galaxy but

there has been no contact or evidence of them. This is a paradox because it makes sense that

there are other forms of life out there but we have no proof or contact with them. With how

enormous the galaxy is it would make sense that humans aren’t the only living creatures within

it but we have no way of proving it because humans can’t travel that far into space.

One possible resolution to the paradox could be that there is no other life forms out

there because we have no way of proving it. A theory doesn’t become a fact until it is proven

beyond a doubt so we can’t say that it is a fact that other life forms exist in the world. Another

resolution would be that humans had to come from somewhere so we could conclude that we

were sent from another planet or civilization. There is a lot of guess work that goes into figuring

out where the first humans came from or how they evolved. If we believe this philosophy,

Adam and Eve could have been sent here on an escape pod or something to find a new world.

A third resolution to this paradox would be that they are out there but we will most

likely never interact with them. Technology is evolving quickly but it would be hard to get the
human body to be able to travel that far to find extraterrestrial life. Humans have already

explored out as far as they can into the universe and haven’t found anything thus far. The last

resolution to this paradox would be that we are the only life forms in the universe and we

should accept that. It’s normal to wonder what other types of life are out there but the

probability of it is very, very low.