| Ramora
Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Kita's pocket
Posts: 5,227
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Aslan Archer
Slytherin Second Year
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Rose Woods
Gryffindor Third Year  x9  x6
|  ½ of Lauralie | Koala | The being in Ern's pocket | Baby Smurf | Prouf member of The Flock
SPOILER!!: natekka Quote:
Originally Posted by natekka  Tessa had quite the love-hate relationship with Astronomy. She loved the idea of it - it was quite fascinating, really - but when it came to the theoretical side, with maths and everything, she switched off. She didn't want to, believe her! She wanted to learn about the vast world around them, but...
Never mind that. She was distracting herself with thoughts about how good it would be to fly out into the universe -- maybe she had been trapped inside for too long. Imagine, though! Freely floating about the universe, observing everything. That would be fun. And it would be practical, hands-on experience!
Shame it wasn't possible.
The seventh year brought her attention back to Professor Sandhu. Mr Kepler..... She tried to remember the things she had learnt before she had dropped Astronomy at NEWTs level. Uh... Nope. Nada. She could only remember the barest of facts. Everything was too wordy, which all the maths and physics. She raised her hand anyway and said what she remembered. "He discovered the area and harmonic laws, right? But he didn't call them laws at the time, I think. There was another one, too..." She trailed off. That would have to do.
Streeeeeetch.
Oh, how she longed to fly. Simran could absolutely relate to the desire to just float into space and experience everything she'd spent her life researching for herself. Unfortunately, she didn't qualify for the astronaut programme -- it was the asthma. Nevertheless, she did still consider Astronomy one of the great loves of her life.
As for the area and harmonic laws, however. "Well done, Miss Roberts!" she nodded. "Those were his second and third laws of planetary motion, and were probably called Theories at the time, and, of course, in German."
Because Johannes Kepler was German, of course. SPOILER!!: griffin Quote:
Originally Posted by griffin Cordelia smiled as the professor referenced what Drew had said. That was her brother! Who was also the brother of two other people now, but that was okay. They could share Drew because people could have multiple siblings. Did that make Xiara and Mark her siblings too? She still wasn’t sure about that. Kepler. He was someone who’s name had appeared in her textbook, although honestly she hadn’t paid that much attention to it. ”He, um, contributed to understanding how planets orbit the sun. Like how some planets travel faster than others depending on their distance from the sun.” Retention of any information beyond that was approximately zero. Did she know what exactly those contributions were? Nope. Absolutely not. But she remembered the basic idea of the speed of the planets having something to do with the distance. See, she was trying. Astronomy was not her favorite subject, but she liked the professor and looking at planets and stars and stuff was cool. She did not enjoy all the theory work, however. "Correct, Miss Winklebeck!" Simran said, nodding approval. "That would be his second law of orbits." SPOILER!!: lazykitty Quote:
Originally Posted by lazykitty Was it time to don the skates yet? 'Cause this one was ready for some sort of physical activity, since Quidditch couldn't be done anymore thanks to the mist.
Anyway, focusing on the lesson. "Newton used Kepler's calculations to calculate the acceleration of planets and his law of universal gravitation." Basically, it was a lot of math that, while it didn't bother Archer, made her RPer's brain hurt. It was almost time for the skates, child, and Simran had been yearning for some physical activity for quite some time now. Her daily jogs (or walks, when she wasn't in the mood to sweat too much) were now limited to pacing her office or other locations in the castle. Not fun.
"Correct! Kepler's third law was instrumental in Newton's Law of Gravitation, and allowed him to establish that the moon was held in orbit around the Earth by gravity." Man, Simran really loved it when her students knew their stuff, and they did seem to all have been really studying.
Proud grandma moment? Absolutely. SPOILER!!: Kimothy Quote:
Originally Posted by Kimothy The attention was making him sink a little bit into his seat. Hi. Yes, that was him. Mr. Gunter. Unless Professor Sandhu meant Mark because he was also a Mr. Gunter. But alright. Drewett had another small sheepish smile on his face as he looked down on his quill, quietly scribbling notes on his parchment as he listened on.
His ears certainly turned pink when Professor Sandhu said he had gotten it a bit wrong too. Kinda awkward being called out in class, by the way, but he realized he should have been more specific with the models. Copernicus did find and create the heliocentric model of the solar system, but it was too basic. Too perfectly circular. Too uniform. Drewett was aware that wasn't how it worked, but he learned today to be more precise with the way he described things. Tidbits of life lessons, of course. Also, do you know what was so lovely about science? When you think something is so precise and accurate, things just go whoosh when you make more discoveries. Evolving.
"Kepler p-proposed three laws...the other one was th-the law of ellipses," the Ravenclaw started off, raising his hand and adding to what the older Gryffindor mentioned. But he wasn't about to go on about the three laws, which he knew on a surface level at the moment because he hadn't read of them much lately with OWLs prep taking up most of his free time. It was a lot to process. "Means their orbits are elliptical as opposed t-to epicyclic...and the sun is just one of the focal points. In an ellipse, th-there are two...so... yeah." Right? Drewett ruffled his hair after he shared. "Perfectly said, Mr Gunter," she nodded. The whole surname thing did get easier once she'd gotten it right once that day. "And the second focus has no great relation to any physical object. It's been suggested that it correlates to other massive objects in other orbits, but we have yet to conclusively prove that." SPOILER!!: hermionesclone Quote:
Originally Posted by hermionesclone Well said?
The boy returned the smile with one of his own. Well said. Of course, Mr Flamsteed was the one who had mainly taught him about the solar system so he did deserve some credit as well. Should he tell the man the next time he saw him? Or would he not be interested in something like this?
Probably the second one.
Shaking his head, he, instead, tried to focus on the chalk that was drawing a model on the board and not on Sandhu missing a portrait of Copernicus in her office. Uh. Yeah. Okay. Not concentrating on that at all. Didn't have thoughts about that either. Nope.
You do you, Professor.
When she asked two questions, Lucas found himself frowning in thought. Describing what Mr Kepler learned was...... difficult. Very difficult. Especially since there was a lot of maths involved and calculations and he always needed to read those parts lots of times to understand them properly. But there was something that struck out to him, only because of how much he tried to read and understand it. So, he tentatively raised a hand in the air. "Uh, see, I think he said that the linear speed and the angular speed of a planet while it's in orbit isn't constant but the area speed is."
Pause.
He had no idea how that was different in any way but he was going to stick to it. Firstly, Master Dakest, it is extremly lucky that Simran did not read minds. Because if she came across your thoughts (or non-thoughts) on Copernicus, she'd blush. But also defend herself extremely heatedly. Everyone was allowed a scientist crush. And Marion had many. Not that Simran blamed her. Scientists were real cuties.
"Velocity, Master Dakest," she corrected gently. Scalars and vectors weren't to be confused, you see. "But yes, well done! They always sweep out a constant area per unit time." SPOILER!!: MadMadamMalfoy Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy Tina's mood perked up a little bit once the lesson started and the first question was asked. Unlike most people, she rather enjoyed the theoretical portion of astronomy lessons because there was no chaos or vague opinion-based conjecture involved, just hard, undebatable facts. She pondered the question. Something about the solar system… that covered a lot of ground. Her initial thoughts went to the solar system's origin and how it was formed by the gravitational collapse of part of a molecular cloud… but somehow she doubted that was the direction this lesson was going. Of course the obvious answer had to do with orbit, planets going around the sun, moons going around planets, and so on - she couldn't think of any other way rollerskating could relate to astronomy - but some of the other students had already touched on that and it didn't need repeating. All that would do was make her seem too stupid to come up with her own answers!
For now, Tina kept quiet, though her silence wasn't from a lack of interest or attentiveness. She paid careful attention to Professor Sandhu's words, diligently copying the information and pertinent models in her notes. That lecture went on a lot longer than she thought it would, but she didn't mind at all. Kepler's model was an interesting topic, even if there were some aspects of it that Tina was still a little fuzzy on, and really any kind of safe, predictable lecture was better than the alternative. Hmm… maybe her first impression was wrong and this class wouldn't devolve into utter chaos after all!
Tina gave the next question a lot of. careful consideration, simultaneously listening to her classmates' answers and trying to recall enough details on the subject to formulate her own. She immediately noticed that so far, nobody had mentioned the math behind Kepler's Third Law. She had a basic understanding of how it worked, but she was having trouble putting it into words… or at least, words that wouldn't sound like she was reading straight out of her textbook. Disappointed in her inability to articulate what she was thinking, she focused on the second law instead. "According to Kepler's Second Law, a planet will cover the same area of space in equal amounts of time - for example, the earth covers the same area every 31 days, or approximately one month - but the rate of speed that it takes to do so varies depending upon its distance from the sun. A planet will move faster when closer to the sun and slower when farthest."
Wow… When Tina rehearsed that answer in her mind, it made sense, but hearing it voiced out loud, it sounded too rambly and inarticulate. Yeah, she was just gonna… stare at her notes for a while and try not to embarrass herself any worse. "Precisely!" she nodded, hands clapping together. "I couldn't have said it myself, except for the fact that the rate of speed of an object is its scalar acceleration, when I believe you meant velocity." SPOILER!!: Fireheart Quote:
Originally Posted by Fireheart Avalon couldn't help but smile as the professor bobbed up and down to her response. The young Ravenclaw thought that her contribution to the discussion was fairly basic, but she was excited nevertheless that Professor Sandhu approved. She jotted down a few notes on a spare piece of parchment, but a lot of the terms of the lecture went over her head. Avalon liked Astronomy, but once a lot of complicated mathematics got involved, she lost a lot of interest. Epicycles? Retrograde motion? Sidereal periods? The first year was relatively bright, but she was slightly embarrassed to discover that she didn't know any of those terms.
She didn't know too much about Kepler, either - only that he proved that planets don't move in perfect circles. And another student had already mentioned that. She did know that his laws laid the foundation for the theory of gravity, though. And although one of her classmates had already brought up his laws, she thought she would add a more simplified explanation. She raised her hand. "He was one of the first to really 'discover' gravity, in a sense. Newton used Kepler's laws for his own theory, but I think Kepler was the first to notice that a certain force was caused by two objects, like the tides on Earth being affected by the Moon." Of course, that force wasn't called gravity at the time. Not until Newton coined the term. But Kepler was definitely talking about gravity nonetheless. "Quite true, Miss Sinclair," she agreed. "Kepler discovered a great many things -- and was also the Father of Modern Optics, and discovered spectacles as a solution for shortsightedness."
What a hunk. SPOILER!!: siriusblackliveson Quote:
Originally Posted by siriusblackliveson Patrick was taking in just how much everyone knew about Kepler's laws. He loved astronomy and almost everyone had mentioned his points. "Like the others said about it taking the same time for all planets circle the sun based on their distance is kind of neat. It all works in relation to the sun, without the sun what would happen?" He had always wanted to ask someone. But how did you ask that without sounding like you were saying the sky was falling. Maybe he should have just not said a thing and wrote down everyone elses answers. Oh well too late for that now. "Without the sun, Master Dooley, the planets wouldn't have formed -- unless you meant to ask what would happen if the sun were substituted for a red giant or a black hole, for example," she smiled. She did so love questions. "In that case, the planets that don't fall in past the event horizon of a black hole will orbit faster than they would with the sun, but otherwise the law still applies."
They just change the variables for the mass of the sun, essentially.
Hopefully that answered his question. Simran clapped her hands together once, loudly, to get everyone's attention. "Well done everyone," she said. "This will be the last thing you will require your note-taking materials for."
"Kepler's three laws of motion are: The Law of Ellipses, The Law of Equal Areas, and The Law of Harmonies." At these words, the stick of chalk resumed writing on the board:
Quote:
Originally Posted by blackboard Law of Ellipses: All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun at one focus.
Law of Areas: A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
Law of Periods: The square of the period of any planet is proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of its orbit. "The Law of Ellipses states that the sun, or the most massive object of the system, is at one focus of the ellipse that describes the orbit of an object, such as a planet. An elliptical orbit means that we have phenomena such as perihelion and aphelion -- the points where the two bodies have the nearest and furthest distance relative to each other."
"The Law of Areas is self-explanatory, and arises from the conservation of angular momentum. A planet closer to the sun, for example, moves faster, and sweeps through a longer path in a given time."
"The law of periods is largely mathematical, and you will find in your textbooks an approximation that serves for the orbits of the bodies in our solar system, because the Sun has a mass far greater than any other bodies in it."
"It would be best to get used to the calculations for Kepler's first and third laws, as they frequently appear on the gravitation questions in your exams."
And now, for the fun part. "Please put your things away once you're finished with copying, and retrieve your wands. We will be practicising the spell creare orbis today."
Quote:
Originally Posted by blackboard The Orbit-Focusing Charm
creare orbis
kre-ah-re OR-bis "The wand movement is to trace the first focus of the ellipse vertically with your wand, and then to tap the object you would like to have orbit it."
"Go ahead and practice -- have your pencilcase orbit your hand, for example -- and if you feel you're ready, you may begin stretching. We don't want cramps." Simran, for one, was starting the stretches with her head.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
OOC: Hello lads, sorry about this late post -- work yesterday ended up being a twelve-hour shift and I was pooped. You'll have 48 hours to practice the spell and stretch before I move the lesson along!
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