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S15.4.5

Knows that conceptual principles and knowledge guide scientific inquiries; historical and current scientific knowledge influence the design and interpretation of investigations and the evaluation of proposed explanations made by other scientists.

Seeing Interference Fringes with a Telescope

Astronomers build larger telescopes not only to collect more energy but also to resolve finer detail in the objects to be studied. While groundbased optical telescopes with "filled" apertures of up to 10 m have been built, and 30 m and larger-aperture designs are being studied, another method of observations permits equivalent apertures spanning tens to hundreds of meters to be used. Radio astronomers have used these instruments, called interferometers, for decades, with equivalent apertures spanning thousands of kilometers.

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Seeing Interference Fringes

Demonstrate the wave nature of light by projecting interference patterns. Detecting the interference of waves is one of the most powerful methods in science for measuring wave phenomena, and using the waves and their interference can reveal underlying details of their sources and the materials through which they travel.

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Now You See It, Now You Don't

A demonstration of the effect of the optic disc, or "blind spot," inherent to the optic nerve entering the posterior of the eye (bulbus oculi).

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Can an Astronaut on Mars distinguish the Earth from its Moon?

Some day an astronaut will stand on Mars and look back at Earth. As Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote Venus, Hesper, Were we native to that splendour or in Mars We would see the globe we groan in, fairest of their evening stars Could we dream of wars and carnage, craft and madness lust and spite Roaring London, raving Paris, in that peaceful point of light? Would we not, when gazing heavenward, at a star so silver-fair Yearn, and clasp the hands, and murmur: Would to God that we were there? But what exactly will one see from Mars?

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