General Science Flash Card Set 443339

Cards 10
Topics Acidity, Carbohydrates, Comets, Cumulus Clouds, Geologic Time Scale, Kingdom, Plate Tectonics, Second Law of Motion, Vectors, Veins

Study Guide

Acidity

An acid is a substance that gives up positively charged hydrogen ions (H+) when dissolved in water. A base (alkaline) gives up negatively charged hydroxide ions (OH-) when dissolved in water. pH is a scale that measures of how basic or acidic a solution is. Numbered from 0 to 14, solutions with a pH of 7 are neutral, less than 7 are acidic, more than 7 are alkaline.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are major sources of energy for the body and are found in sugars (fruit, cane sugar, beets) and starches (bread, rice, potatoes, pasta).

Comets

A comet is a loose collection of ice, dust, and small rocky particles that, in contrast to an asteroid, has an extended atmosphere surrounding the center. When passing close to the Sun, this atmosphere warms and begins to release gases forming a visible coma or tail.

Cumulus Clouds

Cumulus clouds are large, puffy, mid-altitude clouds with a flat base and a rounded top. These clouds grow upward and can develop into a cumulonimbus or thunderstorm cloud.

Geologic Time Scale

The Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old and its history is divided into time periods based on the events that took place and the forms of life that were dominant during those periods. The largest graduation of time is the eon and each eon is subdivided into eras, eras into periods, periods into epochs, and epochs into ages.

Kingdom

Below domain, life is classified into six kingdoms: plants, animals, archaebacteria, eubacteria, and fungi. The last kingdom, protists, include all microscopic organisms that are not bacteria, animals, plants or fungi. (Archaebacteria and eubacteria are sometimes combined into a single kingdom, monera.)

Plate Tectonics

The crust and the rigid lithosphere (upper mantle) is made up of approximately thirty separate plates. These plates more very slowly on the slightly more liquid mantle (asthenosphere) beneath them. This movement has resulted in continental drift which is the gradual movement of land masses across Earth's surface. Continental drift is a very slow process, occurring over hundreds of millions of years.

Second Law of Motion

Newton's second law of motion states that The acceleration of an object as produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. This law basically means that the greater the mass of an object, the more force is needed to overcome its inertia.

Vectors

Velocity and displacement are vector quantities which means each is fully described by both a magnitude and a direction. In contrast, scalar quantities are quantities that are fully described by a magnitude only. A variable indicating a vector quantity will often be shown with an arrow symbol: \(\vec{v}\)

Veins

Veins carry blood back to the heart from the body. While arteries are thick-walled because they carry oxygenated blood at high pressure, veins are comparatively thin-walled as they carry low-pressure deoxygenated blood. Like the heart, veins contain valves to prevent blood backflow.