Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Physics

The Genesis of New Criticism

English Foundations: I.A. Richards' Influence

The roots of New Criticism were initially in England, specifically at the University of Cambridge, championed by I.A. Richards. A lecturer, Richards linked New Criticism to the USA by moving to Harvard in 1939. He found in America a very suitable ground to develop his theory of criticism, as Americans sought new methods for literary study without relying on external context. Richards' seminal work, Practical Criticism, explains his method in detail.

René Wellek and Cosmopolitanism

René Wellek contributed significantly to the cosmopolitan component of New Criticism, ensuring it was not an exclusively Anglo-American method of criticism.

American Roots: The Southern Literary

The Rise of New Criticism

The New Critical method was rapidly adopted, particularly in the North, due to its inexpensive and easily transferable characteristics. Prominent scholars in the North included Austin Warren, W.K. Wimsatt, and Cleanth Brooks. Brooks, in particular, emerged as the most influential New Critic.

Transforming Literary Study

Traditionally, English literature was taught as the History of English Literature, an extrinsic method. New Critics sought to transform these departments into centers of Literary Criticism. They achieved this through three key methods that fundamentally changed the organization of the teaching profession:

• Staffing University Departments

  Gradually, New Critics began to occupy chairs of literature previously

What is Matter?

Matter is the ‘element’ from which everything is made. It is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume.

Where Does Matter Come From?

A billionth of a second after the Big Bang, an important part of the symmetry of the universe was broken. Known as electroweak symmetry breaking, this was the moment when subatomic particles acquired mass for the first time.

What Processes Lead to the Creation of Matter?

A billionth of a second after the Big Bang, electroweak symmetry breaking occurred, and subatomic particles acquired mass for the first time. Among these particles were quarks. As the universe cooled, these quarks combined to form larger, more complex structures: protons and neutrons. Way before the universe... Continue reading "The Origin and Abundance of Matter in the Universe" »

Review

1 Balancing Moments

• seesaw: sube y baja 4
• Perpendicular: At a 90 degree angle to something
• Newton: The unit of measurement of force
• Clockwise: In the same direction as the movement of the hands on a clock
• Counterclockwise: In the opposite direction to the movement of the hands on a clock

Diagram

• a-You have to calculate the moment
• b-The wheel turns more easily when you spin it from near the rim. The distance

M=fd
F=30N
M=fd

Left is 2FI, same result
d=15cm
M=(30) (0.15)=4.5

Right is 2dF, same result
0.15m
M=4.5Nm

2 Making a Scale

• Spring constant: A measure of how stiff or strong a spring is
• Extension: The increase in the length of something
• Elastic: A material able to resume its original shape after being stretched or compressed
• Elastic Limit: The extent to

Thermal Energy and Matter

Work and Heat

Heat is the transfer of thermal energy from one object to another because of a temperature difference. Heat flows spontaneously from hot objects to cold objects. Temperature is a measure of how hot or cold an object is compared to a reference point. On the Kelvin scale, absolute zero is defined as a temperature of 0 kelvins. As an object heats up, its particles move faster, on average. The average kinetic energy of the particles increases. One way that heat flows is by the transfer of energy in collisions. On average, high-energy particles lose energy. Low-energy particles gain energy.

Thermal Energy

Thermal energy is the total potential and kinetic energy of all the particles in an object and depends on... Continue reading "Thermal Energy and Matter: Heat, Temperature, and Specific Heat" »

Understanding Semantic Roles

Unit 6

The Beer-Lambert Law

The Beer-Lambert law describes the linear relationship between the absorbance of light and the concentration of an absorbing species. The relationship is defined by the formula: A = εlc, where:

• A is the absorbance (unitless).
• ε is the molar absorptivity or extinction coefficient.
• l is the path length of the light through the sample.
• c is the concentration of the absorbing species.

This law establishes a direct correlation between absorbance and concentration under specific conditions, such as using a dilute solution and monochromatic light. It is a fundamental principle used for quantitative analysis in methods like UV-Vis spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy. In a linear calibration plot where the path length is 1 cm, absorbance... Continue reading "Principles of Beer-Lambert Law and Voltammetry" »

Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation

What is Gravity?

Sir Isaac Newton described gravity as a force of attraction between all objects. This force is proportional to the masses of the interacting bodies. The more massive the objects, the stronger the gravitational pull between them.

The Moon's Rotation

. How is it that gravity is so weak yet so influential? Although gravity it is considered to be the weakest force of nature, it may be weak here on Earth, but it's not so weak across the cosmos. This invisible force varies on all the planets in the solar system and on the exoplanets we've discovered orbiting other suns. And that's because gravity is an additive force. It scales with mass, so the more massive the planet or star, the stronger its... Continue reading "Unraveling the Mysteries of Gravity: From Newton to Black Holes" »

Who Discovered the Finite Speed of Light?

Ole Romer, a Danish astronomer, discovered that light is not instantaneous. He observed that the emergence of Io from behind Jupiter varied depending on the position of the two planets in the sun's orbit. This led him to realize that light takes time to travel from Jupiter to Earth, causing the observed differences in emergence time.

Understanding the Speed of Light

The speed of light is a fundamental constant, moving through space at a finite speed of 299,792,458 meters per second.

Exploring Light Years and Galaxies

A light year is both a measure of distance and time, representing the distance light travels in one year. Andromeda, a spiral galaxy, is nearly the same size as the Milky Way and is home to... Continue reading "Unveiling the Mysteries of Light and the Universe" »

Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell, was born in 1903 in Bengal, in the then British colony of India. English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. Orwell was closely connected to his work, in the sense that both he and his writing were the same – he liked to write from experience, which is not very usual among writers.

As for his family, they were from the middle-class. He wasn't very close to his father. His mother took him to England when he was very young, where he had a happy childhood in the countryside and developed an appreciation for the rural English landscape.

At the age of 8, Eric Blair started studying in one of the most successful boarding schools in England at the time: St Cyprian's School. Young Eric attended St... Continue reading "George Orwell: A Life of Struggle and Triumph" »