Places of Physics
Located in Geneva, this facility is responsible for the first detection of the Higgs Boson.
CERN
This physicist is said to have developed his theories of motion and gravity after an apple fell on his head.
Isaac Newton
A spaceship is traveling through interstellar space at 0.80c relative to Earth (c = the speed of light). The astronaut turns on a laser pointer and points it directly in the direction the spaceship is traveling. The astronaut measures the laser beam traveling at 3.00x10^8 m/s. An observer on Earth also measures the laser beam. Given that the spaceship itself is already moving at 0.80c, what speed does the observer on Earth measure for the laser beam?
3.00x10^8 m/s (the speed of light is the same for all inertial observers)
This exclamation, used to express excitement or humor, is the catchphrase of Sheldon Cooper from the hit show "The Big Bang Theory"
Bazinga
This is the number of official live mascots UW has ever had
14
The national laboratory with campuses in Seattle, Richland, Portland, and Sequim.
PNNL
This physicist and chemist was the first person to win 2 nobel prizes.
Maria Salomea Skłodowska (Marie Curie)
A tiny asteroid with a mass of 7 kg moves at a speed of 300,500 km/second, then it inelastically collides with Earth. Assuming Earth (containing a mass of 6x10^24 kg) is moving at 30 km/s in the same direction as the asteroid, what is the final speed of the tiny asteroid?
This is not possible (nothing can exceed the speed of light)
Young ____, is the name of the hit prequel spin-off to the Big Bang Theory, which follows the story of a young Sheldon Cooper growing up in the 80s.
Sheldon
This is the football team’s largest win streak in all of UW history.
40 (64 is the largest unbeaten streak, also an acceptable answer)
This radio telescope array helped capture the first direct image of a black hole.
Event Horizon Telescope
Albert Einstein, best known for developing the theories of special and general relativity, hated wearing this article of clothing and would often go out in public without it.
Socks
A spacecraft is falling toward a black hole. An astronaut onboard measures their own clock and determines that they cross the event horizon after a finite amount of time. Meanwhile, an observer extremely far away watches the spacecraft approach the event horizon and never sees it actually cross, instead seeing its light become increasingly redshifted and delayed. The two observers later argue about whether the spacecraft ever crossed the event horizon. Who is correct?
Both (the astronaut crosses the horizon in finite proper time, while the distant observer does not see the crossing occur in their coordinate time)
This two digit prime number, which is the 21st prime number, and when mirrored is the 12th prime number, is Sheldon Cooper's favorite number.
73
Before UW expanded in 1895, this hall used to be the entirety of UW.
Denny Hall
With two locations in the US, this instrument helps us detect gravitational waves.
LIGO
This physicist, despite having a limited early education and never attending college, is one of the founding fathers of electromagnetism.
Michael Faraday
At t=0, you wake up from bed. Then, at t=12 hours, you are back in the same bed doomscrolling after your classes. Given that the earth has moved approximately 100,000 km around the Sun, the earth does one full rotation after 24 hours, the earth’s radius is 6371 km, its circumference = 2*pi*radius, and you walked a total of 10 km, what is your displacement relative to your bedroom?
Zero (you ended right where you started)
This cut of meat, slow-cooked and smoked on a grill, is a Cooper family favorite. In a fan edit of the show, George Cooper gets upset and turns Sheldon into this Texas barbecue dish.
Brisket
Before the current nickname “Huskies,” these are the two previous nicknames of UW’s sports teams.
Sun Dodgers and Vikings
This national laboratory used a live ferret named Felicia to clean its particle accelerator pipes in the 1970s, and also currently houses around 25 bison on its grounds.
Fermilab
This astronomer's severed middle finger is preserved and on display in a museum in Italy.
Galileo Galilei
A photon leaves a distant galaxy with a wavelength of 500 nm. By the time it reaches Earth, its wavelength has increased to 600 nm because the universe has expanded while the photon was traveling. The photon therefore arrives at Earth with less energy than it had when it was emitted. A student concludes that because energy was lost, the photon must have collided with something along the way. Is the student's reasoning correct?
No (cosmological redshift lowers the photon's measured energy as the universe expands; a collision is not required)
In Young Sheldon, this relative of Sheldon ran an illegal gambling operation underneath her laundromat. She was later caught and placed under house arrest.
Mee-Maw
This is the total number of Nobel Prize winners in the history of the Department of Physics.
2