ag (1029) - Lettuce: hypothesis disproven

not much today.. just the histograms of the 15cm x 15cm planting density results, graphing population and samples in terms of frequency distribution.

also, answered a discussion question about whether the hypothesis was proven or disproven, in my case it was disproven because my hypothesis said the 20cm x 20cm would grow the largest, which it didnt, the 25cm x 25cm lettuces did. this is drawn from the means of each

math (1029) - Calc: tangents & differentiation

talked about two things in maths today, the first was the tangent of a curve.

each point on a curve can only have one tangent. a tangent is a linear function that touches a curve at a point without crosing it.

a tangent can also be described as the limit of secants along the curve (coz secants all have 2 points, coming into one point that eventually only has 1 point - the tangent)

most curves can have tangents anywhere (except on discontinuous limits) an exception would be absolute value graphs, on the very corner of the graph, tangents cannot exist (because its possible to have heaps of tangents (in theory) but thats not possible.. that wold not be a tangent) this is also true on piecemeal graphs that are split between a curved half and a straight half. the tangent does not exist on the straight side on the corner.

the formula for differentiation by first principles goes as follows:

f(x+h) - f(x)
f`(x) = lim ___________
h -> 0 h

this is what we call the derivative of a function. we were working on this during the late parts of the lesson, and i was falling asleep.. so have to go over it again.

but basically the question they give you, you just sub it into the formula.

phys (1029) - Space: [p] pendulum angle & mass

we discussed pendulums today, the general basic things of them.

we used stop watches today to test whether the angle we lift the pendulum affected the time (period) of each oscillation. we discovered.. that the change is very little, unless the angle is less than 20, then it is always the same period 9at least checking with stopwatch)among the class, it was all around 2.4

we did a second thing today, using differently weighted balls tied on the end of strings. using this, we determined whether or not mass was a largely effective factor in changing results. this was disproven, both balls showed a time of approx 1.4

more prac tomorrow to do

bio (1029) - MaB: feedback mechanisms

today we went over feedback mechanisms, which included many of the examples from yesterady.

in cold/hot temperatures.. the body adjusts, as discussed.

liver releases insulin or pancreas releases glucagon depending on sugar levels, and the kidneys regulate the water in blood/urine.

now these are negative feedback mechanisms, which means that when receptors detect change, the body acts in an opposite way.

examples of this in technology (for comparison) include: air conditioners, kettles, irons and fridges (for thermostuff anyway)

positive feedback mecahnisms are the opposite, when receptors detect change.. they support that. one example would be a woman's uterus expanding when it senses a baby coming out. beautiful, no? -.-

the part of the brain in charge with these feedback mechanisms is the hypothalamus

ag (1028) - Lettuce: population & samples

today we graphed frequency distribution. other than that.. we talked abotu population & samples.. not much though.

we talked about what techniques we would do for random sample picking in a 1ha bit of land filled with lettuce (noones crazy enough to weigh them all -.-) so..

we suggested quadrat throwing, or going along diagonals, or a zigzag pattern. i cant recall anymore.. but tahts all pretty much. oh and walking a set number of paces, keeping consistent, and if bothered, having scaled maps of the paddock and to pick randomly from squares there.

bio (1028) - MaB: homeostasis

i wish i paid better/more attention today.. but what can is ay.. i was sleepy.. all day.

homeostasis is the process that body's take to maintain internal temperature.

old example of the titanic brought up again.. this time more explained. see if the body's internal temperature drops below like around 20, the heart will stop functioning.. and taht screws everything. what happened with the people of the titanic though.. coz they were floating in the water.. and water is a good conductor of heat.. the water stole their heat.

as much as possible, the body tries to keep the internal temperature at around 36-38. it has a number of receptors all over that detect ambient temperature, just like otherparts of the body have other receptors for other senses.

when its hot.. capillaries in the skin swell up to get rid of heat, so more blood flows through, making our skin appear redder. glands secrete sweat so that when it is evaporated, it takes some of the body's heat with it.

likewise for when its cold.. the capillaries shrink, less blood = paler appearance. we shiver because shaking enciourages movement of molecules, prodcing heat. hair on our skin sticks up, whichj traps air, creating an insulator (air is a poor conductor of heat)

that's all to say about that.. the other bits of the video were random.

kindneys' role is to regulate water in blood. the blood dumps all the water in there, then the kidneys return the right amount to the blood, any excess is peed out. that's why when we're dehydrated, we dont pee much, and its more concentrated. the blood is trying to conserve water.

talking about blood sugar levels.. sugar that we eat is used up really quickly. if we dont have enough sugar though, the pancreas releases a hormone called glucagon to the liver, which then releases stored glycogen as glucose.

ext2 (1027) - day 1: getting the geist

today was basically finding out what we're going to do more or less.

for me.. i've settled with the idea that i'm going to write a script. that way, it can go either way.. i can change to a short story if that's what i feel i should do, or i can actually make the movie if i can and i have actors etc.

i should start looking up short films to watch, trailers and music videos can also be inspiration as i have asked.. but i've been challenged to watch the music videos without sound. an interesting concept.

i currently have no REAL idea of plot or whatver.. but apparently i can write in my journal like i do here, just talking to myself. that's good then. note to self.. i actaully need a journal first.

but yes.. i think i'm gonna start soon by watching "peek a boo" and "yellow fever"

good stuff.

ext2 isnt as intimidating.. this should be seen as an awesome subject, not a reluctant subject. today i was just tired and sleepy.. and it's late now so i should hit the hay.

eng (1027) - CST: sadat 5

can't really say much.. it was a lot of reading.

we talked about altruism.. which is basically doing things because its the right thing to do, not coz you want to do it.

we talked about sadat being self-righteous, he was confident that what he was saying was right.

we also talked about how he didn't use doublespeak, he claimed so anyway. that whatever he said was honest words.. that he "didnt speak more than 1 language" to quote.

bio (1027) - MaB: [p] enzymes in different pH

today once again we played with milk and rennin.

we used 10mL of milk in 3 tubes, heated to approx 37* - 40*, and then in each, poured 2mL HCl, or 2mL distilled water, or 2mL NaOH

only the acidic one had a result.

milk was spilled on the hot plate today.. it smelt nice for some reason.

ag (1027) - Lettuce: standard error

standard error is used in experiments to see if the varying results are caused by the factors tested or by chance.

if the difference between the means of the two sets of data is more than x2 the standard error calculated, then yes the difference is caused by the altered variables.

this was only true between 20cm x 20cm and 25cm x 25cm

the formula goes like.. well its too complicated to write here.. check book for details

phys (1027) - Space: gravitational potential energy

earlier today we talked about gravitational potential energy.

we discussed that in previous years, potential energy was given with the formula

E = mgh

where m is the mass, g is gravity (aka 9.8) and h is the height of the object.

today we went over a different equation.. one thats more constant.. because the first one, assumes gravity is constant, whcih it isnt.. the higher above the earth you are, the weaker gravity gets.

E = -(Gm1m2)/r

they are meant to be subscript 1 and 2 btw.. the m represents the mass of the two objects in which gravity is acting, and G is the constant gravity thing we were talkinga bout

phys (1026) - Space: weight on mars

today we discussed what our weight would be on mars or on the moon, which of course would be less because the force of gravity is less there.

we also began to talk about gravitational potential energy, which increases as an object is lifted higher from the earth, except even though the effect of gravity would be slightly weaker if we jumped, it would be negligible, aka dosent really count, its pretty much still the same.

math (1026) - Calc: secants

catching up for monday 26 0ct

a secant, is basically a straight line drawn in between two points in a curved graph. drawn on a straight line, its pretty much just on that line.

hmm.. there's stuff that i should probably know but i didnt exactly do the homework -.-

all ir emember is what it looksl ike ^^"

the thing about secants though, is that the answer (gradient) you get from them is only between those two points, it can change depending on what points you use.

Physics 1027 - DAWN

I might as well post about todays stuff in class today , due to phil's lack of constant posts.

Hmm.... Im already starting to forget what we did.

We got some sheets about launching the spacecraft DAWN into space and how it uses an ion propulsion system to move which is much better than normal rockets. The sheet said that it was going to the asteriods Ceres and ... (i forget the other one) to see what the conditions early in the solar system were like. ION PROPULSION ROCKETS ??? Was the sheet true or not ? It certainly looked authentic, but why wasnt there anything about this in the papers ? The new propulsion system looks like the stuff from science fiction o_O.

Well, the rocket apparently works by ionising Xenon gas and accelerating it with a electric field, and due to Newtons third law of motion, accerates the rocket in the opposite direction.

math (1023) - Calc: continuity

continuity is basically just if the graph isnt detatched at say.. an asymptote or if it jumps in a piecemeal graph.

there was a rule, that if:

lim f(x) = f(a)
x->a

that means it would be continuous at x = a

i dunno it made sense before.. then i went braindead hahaha. i'll go over it again, didnt go over it much today coz we were gonna rush out to find out prefects.

oh and if the limit looks like

x->^+

then x approaches a from the right, aka values larger than a. same goes with ^- but from the left.

yeah.. thats kind of it for today's maths notes

phys (1023) - Space: gravity & orbit

today we talked about the earth's gravity, and i did the best i could paying attention to all that formula crap.

mr pitt started by asking us the unit for gravity.

some people said ms^2, others said it was N/kg. and apparently the N/kg was the correct one.

it goes like this:

w = mg

where w = weight (a force, so F)
and m = mass (in kg)
and g = gravity

switch that all around and you get..

g = F/m (aka N/kg.. get it?)

anyway.. we also talked about a few other.. random things. like building 6400km high ladders and jumping off. yeaahh.. apparently you'd need to be at a speed of something like.. 27000km/h? in order to stay in orbit and not come back to earth.. coz even firing a bullet would fall down again.

also, at the equator.. one would move at 1700km/h. now in order to have a satellite that would be geosynchronized? id unno if i heart pitt correctly.. but yeah.. it'd have to be 36000km up. or did i mix up my stats.. crap.. must double check and edit this post if i mixed it up.

but yeah.. satelllites like to be at that level so dishes can send signals to the same, "stationary" satellites. basically.. the satellites are in sync with the earth's rotation so it moves at the same rate, as if it doesnt move at all.. geographically

eng (1023) - CST: sadat 4

didn't make much progress today.. coz had to talk about other stuff like classes and rank slips and whatnot.

but we did talk about some contextual stuff.. like jerusalem. home of the ark of the covenant and deathplace of jesus, important to the three battling religions.

we reviewed stuff again, like techniques. repetition, metaphor, simile, anaphora, lexical chains, imagery and quotes, etc.

we discussed what kind of person sadat is, and what we can draw from just 5 pages of his speech. he's a passionate, logical speaker who demonstrates his knowledge and proves he knows what he's talking about with analogies and whatnot. he's religious, in terms of his own, and neighbouring religions, but he is also a proud man. he is dedicated and he is courageous, especially to step into enemy territory and make such claims.

although he offered peace and all these guarantees with israel, he still claimed it all to be arab land, including jerusalem.

apparently both the arabs and the israeli people filmed it, and they edited the speech and camera shots in different ways. the arab takes focused on people not paying attention, and the israeli film showed astonished looks on peoples faces.

also, apparently my level of language has crapped up as my recent essays have shown me, and it has been commented on -.- have to work on that.. i did crap in eng and ext1 eng this yearly.. not surprised im not in top class -.-

bio (1023) - MaB: [p] substrate concentration

in today's prac, we tested the effects of substrate concentration on enzyme reaction rates.

its too bad we didnt finish -.-

basically.. we added 3mL of rennin enzyme to 10mL of solution. the milk concentration varied though, and we added water so that the solution was always 10mL.

we tested 10mL, 7mL, 5mL and 3mL, and made sure that the solution was at 37*C before we started the reaction. we timed it, but did not finish.

damn.

math (1022) - Calc: limits 2

continued talking about limits today, did some exercises.. and now i understand whats going on.

the deal is to always sub the limit number into the limit letter thing.

eg.
lim
x -> 5

you sub the 5 into wherever x is.

but if its a 0, its undefined, you gotta factorize the top or bottom in order to cancel out some of the pronumerals.

thing about infinity thingies though.. you cant have them in fractions, gotta get rid of them. and as anything over x with the limit of x -> infinity, the anything over x will = 0

hope im not screwing upt hese ntoes coz im in a rush to play kh

cant have 0 on the denominator, so in order to get rid of it, divide everything (top and bottom) by the highest power of x (or whatever pronumeral that the limit is) on the denominator. otherwise, if its not 0 on the bottom anymore.. sub in man.

anyway.. hope i didnt miss anything.. im too excited to play.

phys (1022) - Space: satellites & shuttles

watched a few videos today, the first was about launching the ARES shuttles. after NASA said they would stop launching shuttles, its back to square one with old style shuttles, complete with parachuting back to earth.

the part that comes back to earth is shaped and designed to fall to earth in a certain way, with about a foot thick of material that's meant to burn up on re-entry.

mr pitt told us about a few students from HAHS who have moved on to this astronomical crap, including an andrew do guy who worked on the ARES projcets. he also told us of a 19 year old guy who designed the ways of travelling to mars.

the deal is, you gotta send satellites to where mars WILL be, not where it is currently, also it has to land in an orbit around mars so not to be pulled in or fall straight on the surface.

we talked abotu how coming into the earth (in a shuttle), you'd have to be at the right angle. if the angle was too steep, it would burn up too quickly and easily. if nto steep enough, the shuttle will head back in the opposite direciton, kind of like skipping a stone on a pond, but skipping the shuttle on the atmosphere of the earth? hahaha

also.. venus' orbit is faster than ours.. but we didnt finisht aht discussion about why

eng (1022) - CST: sadat 3

lexical chains (string of words) and anaphora were what we discussed that sadat used today.

he made reference to guys in the old testament, who were known by people of all three religions. he spoke of wise king solomon and king david.

he also made a lot of guarantees with israel, ultimately he was saying that it was arab land.

a bit of a history lesson though, israel had historic claims on the land, and anyone could really coz back in the ancient days, theb oarders were always shifting.

bio (1022) - MaB: [p] effect of temp on enzymes

experiment today, testing the rate of reaction of rennin in milk. me and paul's experiment didn't really go anywhere, then we found it it wasnt meant to.

we added 1mL of rennin (enzyme) to 10mL of milk at diff temperatures. 10, 37 and 50. our control was just milk sitting on its own.

only the 37 was meant to clot though, coz 10 is too cold, the enzymes would be inactive, and the 50 would denature the enzymes.

we altered temperature of milk in test tubes by keepnig them in beakers of water of varying temperatures, measuring the MILK's temperature with a thermometer. each reaction was timed using a stopwatch, but not recorded coz it went nowhere -.-

ag (1022) - Lettuce: environment

few things to continue from what we were doing last term.

planting windbreaks blocks plants from being damaged, eg snapped or fruit lost. windbreaks reduce loss of water through evaporation or transpiration.

planting windbreaks casts shadows that reduce light penetration (this can be bad)

high planting densities causes similar things, such as high humidity, which increases the chance of fungal disease.

we also talked about a few things about what we did in terms of the lettuce.

eg. we raised beds 1 week prior to transplanting to better drainage and grounding the roots. also, we put mushroom compost over it to increase soil strucutre, ability to hold water and add nutrients to the soil. this should have been done a month early to allow it to be worked into the soil with cultivation

phys (1021) - Space: satellites

today.. didnt talk about much coz looking at tests

hmm ironic that the science site im on is israeli, just coming out of talking about english

so it goes like this..

mr pitt was talking about satellites.

he talked about the iridium satellites that were meant to be for communication, but failed coz people dont use satellite phones, but the US military put it to use.

he also told us about sputnik, from like 1957, a satellite launched by USSR just coz they could. it was a breakthrought hat proved that satellites could be put into orbit, and that signals can be sent from sputnik.

mr pitt also told us about the atmosphere being really thin, and there beingl ike 10000 bits of space junk flying above the atmosphere right now, and have they all have to be monitored, coz we dont want things to crash into them.

mr pitt said we should see satellites, especially the iridium ones, which "flare" aka reflect heaps of sunlight.

he also spoke of the ISS and how it's being built. it recently had stuff added to it, and people work for like 4-5 hours on jet pack chair thingoes, working on the ISS. it costs like 60 million dollars for a ride up there, which led to mr pitt talkinga bout that 2 billion dollar boat that kills cameras when it detects them.

anyway.. tahts pretty much it i think.

eng (1021) - CST: sadat 2

perhaps today's notes would be more productive if i was actually paying attention during the day. also i fell asleep for many hours after thje surpreme heat, that coulda wiped my memory a little.

same old same old thing with sadat, check speeech for highlights, talking about "peace by justice" or something like that.

learned a bit of context today though.. the whole thing started after WWII, man for some reason i thought it was old stuff.. like ancient milennium stuff.. hmm oh well. but anyway.. UK thought it'd be mad to dump all the jews in israel.. and so they did.. and heaps of jews followed.. they needed more land so started moving outwards. and they have the arms to do so thanks to the US and at the time.. USSR

discussions about "wall" and "barrier". it's all in their heads.. emphasis on the barrier to make it seem bigger, to bang in the fact, and make it seem unbreakable. the agreement to stop had to be from both sides.. it had to be negotiable. what i said about walls though, was that when there's a wall in between people, people on both sides can only see what's on their side, not the other's. get it?

anyway that's all i can remember.. but yeah we were just reading through it

bio (1020) - MaB: enzyme reactions

as we discussed before, enzymes are catalysts, which means they speed up reactions without being part of the reaction itself. mr mahfouz described it with cars being enzymes, with limited seats.

today we were talking about reactions with enzymes. so long as there as substrates, enzymes will keep on working. substrates dont always have to fit perfectly into the active site, most of the time its just roughly, and then it tightens to fit.

a single enzyme molecule can assist 5 million reactions in 1 minute.

with increased concentration of substrates, rate of reaction increases, however it slows if the amount of enzymes is constant. at the saturation point, the reaction rate of enzymes cannot go any higher because they are working at their limit. the only way to increase this after is to increase the concentration of enzymes.

enzymes tend to work better in warmer temperatures (around 45), this is called the optimum temperature. the reason why is because heat encourages vibration in molecules (kinetic energy man!) so change of collision is increased, thus reactions are increased. but too hot and the enzymes will begin to denature (active site becomes deformed and cannot fit substrates)

this also explains why magnesium will burn in fire but not rust in open air

also, different enzymes work in different pH levels. pepsin and rennin need acidic environments, amylase needs close to neutral (slightly basic) and trypsin (found in small intestine) needs alkaline environments.

last of all.. a common example of an enzyme is found in many living organisms (including animals, potatoes, apples, etc) is one that breaks down hydrogen biroxide (H2O2) which is poisonous, and is broken down water and oxygen.

math (1020) - Calc: limits

INTRODUCTORY CALCULUS

hurray -.-

today we learned about limits, with like 6 pages worth of notes, or was it 8? but we got through all of them -.-

a limit is LIKE an asymptote, but isnt, because the limit could be included.

it's represented as a hole in the graph.

i'm still confused about it all.. but its expressed as:

lim [insert function here]
x -> (number)

but yeah.. a limit is.. the number that as the graph aproaches x, y would be the limit.. or somehting

i dont know.. it confuses me.. i'll go over it again tomorrow and have better notes here

phys (1020) - SPACE intro

SPACE

didn't talk about much today, coz a lot of it was talking about test papers.. however we did discuss a few things. mr pitt prosed a question about weightlessness.

weight is the force on an object depending on its mass and another object's (eg planet) gravity. eg. gravity on earth is 9.8, and radius is about 6400.

we had a discussion about how far earth's gravity goes. i said something stupid.. i said it extends as far as the atmosphere -.- because tahts the boundary in which things are held in, but then garner argued that gravity holds the moon in place too, and im like oh yeah.

mr pitt explained that the forces between the earth and the sun would be the same, because of newton's third law. now that makes sense considering planets dont just plummet into the sun coz it has epic gravity.

objects that are larger have stronger graivty, and so we orbit the sun, the sun doesnt orbit us, but we do make it wabble slightly

eng (1020) - CST: sadat 1

CRITICAL STUDY OF TEXTS

today we began talking about speeches etc.

we were talking about what makes a good speech. tlaked about techniques that sadat used in the first 1/3 of his speech, like appealing to audience, emotional appeal, banging in his message (peace) straight away and over and over.

in context, he spoke about the arab-israeli war, and was willing to go to israel to present this speech (israel was winning) and talked about what the cultures of islam, christianity and judaism had in common.

speeches are meant to be spoken, so ms read the speech to us instead of getting us to read them. this establishes a connection with the audience, in an attempt to bring the audience into the speaker's world, then learn something they did not know before.

it was a dodgy idea for sadat to go to jerusalem, and many people from boths ides disagreed, but he wished to go anyway. israel were very suspicious of him, so speaking of peace and religious references early in the speech as much as possible cleared him of suspicion. then talking of peace and referring to religious things, and tlaking about how loss and death mattered no matter what side they were on appealed to audience.

damn i cant really remember anything much else specific.

bio (1019) - MaB: enzymes

MAINTAINING A BALANCE

enzymes

today we started yr12 bio. hurray x.x

well paul is staying, and so far we still have the fouzeh, so he ranted today, lawl at pronunciations.

he started talkinga bout we as people, and growing and decreasing in size.

the whole thing revolves around organic compounds and how they are created (anabolism) or broken down (catabolism), both are types of metabolism.

mr mahfouz proved this to be successful coz last year (yr11) when we tested for glucose in plants, what we were really testing for was starch. coz sugars are stored as more complex crap (hence the growing).

as we grow up, our rate of anabolism is much higher than rate of catabolism, so we grow, and for a while we pretty much maintain the same size and mass, but as we age (after 40 or so) our body starts to deplete.

enzymes are a catalyst, each enzyme has one specific role each. enzymes are what cause anabolism or catabolism. enzymes have a sort of key&lock shape, that only certain chemicals can fit into, and from there the chemicals are either bonded together, or broken apart.

enzymes are a type of protein, they are made up of amino acids that are held together with hydrogen bonds. amino acids are organic, which means they contain H, C and O, but also contain N coz they are amino bro.

some enzymes require specific environments, eg pepsin in the stomach (acidic), or amylase in the mouth (saliva is alkaline) that's in terms of pH anyway

in terms of temperature.. in cold conditions, enzymes cannot function, but if warmed up they can. in extreme heat, the shape of enzymes are altered, and so they cannot successfully perform their role (the "keys" dont fit into the "locks"). also, the enzymes can start breaking down, and the process cannot be reversed.

tahts why, as fouzy explained, most people on the titanic died because of cold instead of drowning. also, thats how frostbite works, the body cuts off circulation in limbs in order to preserve good enzymes etc for the body. that's why we do are not meant to sleep when we are lost in some cold place, because the brain shuts things down as we sleep to rest it.

likewise, it is not good in heat, tahts why if temp is like 50*, its not safe to be outside.

we looked at a graph about temperature and effectiveness of enzymes, they work best between temperatures of 30 and 50, with 40 being the peak, and gradually going down in either direction, hitting the bottom at 30 and 50. temp was on x-axis, on y was rate of reaction.

anyway thats all for now i think.. so to just do those questions now i guess.