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Just a cool thought

Today in class a cool thought was brought to my attention. The idea that an object that is an infinite distance away from all other objects will have no gravitational potential energy. Its a cool idea because if you think about any object on earth it has its own gravitational field due to the fact that all matter has mass. The earth is a great example of this because we can clearly see the moon and how it travels around the earth which is due to the gravitational pull by the earth on the moon. S

SJamison

SJamison

MRI machine

So recently I had knee surgery, about four months ago on my right knee. Everything was going well and good until a few days ago. Come to find out I messed up my knee again but wait there's more, this time it was both of them. My right one definitely has another tear in the meniscus and the surgery is scheduled.  But, the left knee, however, we were unsure of so i had to get a MRI done. During this I was curious to see how it worked but come to my amazement so was the guy operating it. Despite th

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Knee surgery

So in the past month I have recently had Knew surgery to remove a torn meniscus. This surgery was relatively quick only lasting about an hour. Knee surgery has come a long way from where it use to be. They use to have to open up the whole knee but now you only walk out with three little holes in your leg. All the thanks goes to physics and the ability to manipulate things using modern knowledge of optics and modern technology. During this surgery they were able to take out a torn piece of menisc

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Friction Good or Bad

A world without friction. That would be something wouldn't it? I cant think of something more hated and loved at the same time more than Friction. I started thinking about this at soccer practice the other day when it was raining out. I kicked a ball on the ground with spin on it but instead of curving it spun going in a straight line sliding a crossed the wet turf. With the coefficient of friction being lower on a wet surface this caused for less friction between the ground and ball causing it

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Hockey

So this weekend my brother had a hockey game that I went to go watch. I traveled all the way to buffalo to watch his team get beat 5-2. Anyways, during his game he got absolutely destroyed at center ice. It sounds like it would really hurt but getting hit in the center of the ice isn't as bad as it sounds, getting hit against the boards it way worse which I know from experience (I have had my fair share of getting hit myself). But, this got me thinking of why it hurts more getting hit against th

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A flexible pencil???

Why does a pencil or any linear object look like it is bending when you wiggle it? I was very curious of this today and was wondering why? The answer to this question is that in the way you are wiggling it you are rotating around its center in such a way that our eyes perceive that the ends of the pencil is moving faster even though the angular velocity is truly the same through out because it is truly a rigid object. The reason for this is because when an eye is viewing a fast-moving object the

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SJamison

The kronwall

Kronwall is one of my favorite defenseman in the NHL. The reason for this being his huge hits that he has (shown below) and this great defensive play. The reason for hit great hits is because he combines his massive self with a good amount of speed to completely wreck players. The main reason this is so effective is because of a fundamental aspect of physics which is the idea that momentum must be conserved. Since he catches his opponent off guard it allows him to build speed and use his mass to

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Jumping from high distances

When a person is jumping from a high distances to the ground or other hard surfaces it is important to maximizes the time that you are decelerating. This is vitally important because the thing that causes injury is the force that is applied to you over short periods of time. If you can spread the force out along a period of time the impulse over time wont be a as big thus your body will not have to absorb all of the energy at once allowing for a safe landing. This also allows for the body to be

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SJamison

Underwater Explosion

When an explosive goes off under water the shock wave carries a lot further than it would if it were on land and in the air. This is cool because water has a higher density than air so this mean that it is harder to move or has higher inertia. And we know that inertia is a measure of how restive something is to acceleration. This means that after the explosion goes off the shock wave from that will carry further through the water with smaller deceleration. From this we know that this shock wave

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Dropping a gun

In almost every action-comedy movie there is a person who happens to drop a gun and then it goes off. This however just does not happen every time a gun gets dropped. For a gun to be fired it requires the firing pin to be activated and to do so you either need to pull the trigger or get the hammer to release and come into contact with the firing pin. The chances of this happening are slim to none. In fact, a lot of gun instructors will tell you that it is safer to just drop the gun if it falls o

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And so it begins

I'm really looking forward to this year in physics C. I really enjoyed AP physics last year and it sounds like this year we will be adding onto content that we previously learned which will be great. However, the class so far has seemed pretty terrifying, even though we have only been at it for about 6 days, the thousands of accounts to sign up for and the mountains of work hanging over our heads(which of course has potential to do damage hahaha) makes it look like we are in for a challenging ye

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SJamison

Driving a car

So my Friend Timmy C. is not the best driver.  See he has just stated and doesn't quite get that you cant hit the brakes really hard. So as you can imagine it is a very jerky car ride. And thinking more about this it is because of out mass that we will continue to move forward even though the car has slowed. This is because of inertia and mass is a property of inertia. Inertia is the resistance to acceleration based on mass. So therefore a heavier mass will be harder to accelerate and a lighter

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SJamison

Bullet proof glass

Everyone calls it bullet proof glass but in reality nothing is bullet proof. The term for it is bullet resistant because if something is shot enough, one will find its way through eventually. Bullet resistance glass is a combination between very thin sheets of glass and even thinner sheets of tough plastic made of polycarbonate. This is able to work because as the bullet hits the glass it breaks the thin sheets of glass and the energy from the bullet is absorbed by the plastic layers. To make th

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SJamison

Hot Drinks on Warm Days???

So I recently came a crossed an article that said drinking warm liquids on hot days will actually cool you down faster than a cold drink. I found this really strange because I would have thought that a nice and cold refreshing drink would cool you down,however, like normal I was wrong. I thought that was really interesting so i decided to look into it. I found out that this is actually true. When drinking a hot liquid on a hot day it will cause you to sweat more than than usual, cooling you down

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Turbo = Fun

A turbo system in a car is a pretty simple but genius idea. It uses the gas exhaust from a piston engine to spin the turbine in the turbo system which then pumps more air into the cylinders of the car, allowing the car to burn more fuel each second. As a result of a turbo system, your car will burn more gas but because of this the turbo will provide the car with more power due to the increased revolutions of the pistons. By installing a turbo in your car you will be able to increase your cars ov

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whistle

How does a whistle work? In order for the typical whistle to work you need air streams. In order to get the high pitched noise that you hear coming out of a whistle you need the air steams to interact or cross paths. This is done through the round part of the whistle, as you blow into the whistle the air travels through the loop and up again (as seen in pic below) this allows the air to cross paths with the new air coming in. At this point where the air stream crosses itself again becomes a high

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SJamison

Golf

The key to golf is not only patience but to have a consistent swing. If you can hit the ball the same way with the same force overtime you can be accurate with how far you hit the ball just by changing clubs. Each club has a different loft and an angle associated with it. Knowing the angle and the force exerted on the ball allows for you to be able to calculate the distance that the ball will travel using kinematics because you are able to find the horizontal and vertical forces suing the angle

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The butterfly effect

@Cvankerkhove had a blog recently about the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is basically the idea that every thing that happens has an effect on everything else so if one thing doesn't happen everything else could be different. This got me thinking about the idea of time travel and how things would change if you were to go back in time and interact with other people. With this idea in mind what would change? Would the time line that you went back to, continue on and basically start all ov

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SJamison

Shoot your grade corrections

So last Friday our class of 22 had the pleasure of taking part in a Projectile Lab in which we would shoot our grade. In this lab we would be trying to hit a textbook after making various calculations. Another important aspect of this lab was the fact that if we hit this book the whole class would pass and if we missed the whole class would fail. As many of you know this lab didn't go so hot, crunched for time and lack of communication lead to a complete miss. Mr. Fullerton, being the wonderful

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SJamison

Hockey shot

Thinking about what we have been learning in physics, on the topic of energy, it makes it more clear to see some of the physics that goes into taking a shot in hockey. I mean they go so fast but getting there was a little hard for me until this unite that we are in now. Looking at elastic potential energy you can clearly see that in the picture below. It's crazy to see how that potential energy is turned into kinetic energy  in fractions of a second and the puck is sent flying at ridiculous spee

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SJamison

Skating

So with the hockey season starting today I thought that i would do a blog about hockey. Thinking about skating in hockey and why you need to get your skates sharpened, this is to allow for there to be enough friction to propel you forward. This is just like running were you need friction between the ground and your feet to be able to drive forward by pushing back. The only difference is that in hockey you need the skates sharp to cut into the ice in order to drive yourself forward. This is showi

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Winter Wonder Lander Part 1

With this wonderful weather comes wonderful roads. From driving, it can be a very dangerous with the coefficient of friction much smaller making roads very slippery. Thinking about our previous unit with rotational and transnational motion it can relate a lot with a car in the snow. When starting up the tires often spin when very slick out causing for more rotational movement rather then the wanted transnational. And then as you get going you begin to build more transnational rather than rotatio

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Stomping in the snow

When you are walking in the snow have you ever noticed that when your foot lands in light, fluffy snow your footprint is actually bigger than it is and you can see the extra space with your foot still there? This happens because when you are bringing your foot down it traps a pocket of air between your foot and the ground. As a result of this once your foot hits the ground that air pocket is dispersed thus it causes for the snow around your foot to move even though you are not touching it. This

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Falling down the stairs

So last night it was very late and dark and my mom decided to leave a basket at the top of the stairs. I think you can see where this is going from the title. So going down stairs was very fast. And getting up the only thing that I could think about is what just happened in terms of energy. The first thought that I had was how much potential energy I had at the top of the stairs. The next was how much transferred into kinetic energy from falling down the stairs. Then I thought about the mid way

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