Chemistry and Physics Faculty Articles
Title
The Visualization and Measurements of Mass Functions with LEGO
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-10-2020
Publication Title
Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society
Keywords
Astronomy data visualization, Stellar mass functions, Initial mass function, Interdisciplinary astronomy, Pareto distribution, Mass ratio
ISSN
2515-5172
Volume
4
Issue/No.
6
First Page
134
Abstract
We promote the concept of mass functions for interdisciplinary science education and communication. A mass function characterizes the frequency distribution of the masses of objects in the universe. We present an experiment to demonstrate this concept to a diverse audience of science students, using popular LEGO toys. We discovered that the LEGO mass function is surprisingly similar compared to mass functions of astronomical objects such as stars and galaxies.
Additional Comments
Nova Southeastern University's President's Faculty Research and Development grant #: 335510
NSUWorks Citation
Hansotia, K. K., & Kautsch, S. (2020). The Visualization and Measurements of Mass Functions with LEGO. Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society, 4, (6), 134 - . https://doi.org/10.3847/2515-5172/abad29. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cnso_chemphys_facarticles/276
DOI
10.3847/2515-5172/abad29
Comments
©2020. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.