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About this blog

Just a modest student blog. Nothing dubious going on here, we promise.

Entries in this blog

The Small Angle Approximation

At the time of writing Christmas is over, its before the New Year and the impetus to do anything school related has left my body and soul. Nonetheless I have a smithereen within me crying against the apathy that crowded so densely among my brain cells and I have found it and nourished it and it becomes this blogpost. According to the Wikipedia page, the small angle approximation is a convenient and necessary estimation where in some cases you can replace a trigonometric function of theta(Θ) with

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First Post

I'm a humble student of IHS, one of many that have elected to enroll in AP physics this year. I like philosophy.  I enrolled in AP physics C out of curiousity, hopefully I'm not inundated soon. Throughout the year, I'm eager to gain insights into the natural world and make new friends. It is rumored among the student body that AP Physics C is a difficult undertaking but I have resolve, about half a year's worth. 

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My bike and I

I purchased a bike with the money I made last summer at my dreadful waitstaff job. Anyways despite the working conditions, I now had a used bicycle with several neat gears and a chain. Now I believe that these gears have some relation to my cycles per unit-of-time which I believe is similar to a 'frequency'  or cadence of turns on the main gear, perhaps similar to rotational velocity. A second gear operates the driver wheel which lends it similar amounts of speed if I could be so inclined to say

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Quantum Leap

The colloquialism "quantum leap" has uses beyond conversation. It describes atomic orbital transitions as electrons "leap" from energy level to another and in the process they either absorb or energy in the form of photons. "Quantum leap" is also used as a figure of speech, a short hand metaphor in language. The idiom may connote a change in something's character, a greater change in energy or excitement or even a "leap of faith" or "jump to conclusions". In my chemistry class, the notes had con

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What makes an Element?

Where do elements get their physical properties? Well the short answer is inter-molecular forces and that's really all the time I have to spare before the second quarter. Several inter-molecular forces keep an element at a certain phase of matter. The tenacity of these forces depends a great deal on the circumstances of pressure and temperature but for blog purposes, it is safe to think of these at standard pressure and temperate so it is easily visualized. These so-called inter-molecular forces

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School Has Ruined Me

I once had confidence in my chemistry abilities but now I am only familiar with the element of sadness. After my penultimate chemistry test, I reflected on every agonizing measure I made to seat before the multiple choice booklet in a room remote from happiness which maddened me with its taciturn silence.  I can look back upon the years of my boyhood, the better parts of it spent in school, and I am overwhelmed by regret, failure and portents of a miserable future. I remember the day my scholast

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Eternal Recurrence

The most profound idea that can occur to any mind is that of the cyclic nature of time, fate and regeneration. Even though it is evident in scientific things like the first law of thermodynamics and the ultimate and imminent destiny of a cyclic universe, one needs only recognize that their apparent existence implies the intrinsic possibility that their existence, as it is in that instant, is able to recur again and has occurred infinitely many times before as it does in that moment. The permutat

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Triboelectric effect; what you need to know and why you should care.

The triboelectric effect manifests from frictional contact between materials resulting in contact electrification but why? Why are things like this? Why do we live? Why do we die? But anyways here the things we have to know. People have been using this effect like a play thing, charging objects to repel another or zapping frogs apparently (thank you) and I believe it was quite important to our discovery of electromagnetism, especially in the ancient world. If your childhood was at all interestin

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Someone needs to stop Neil deGrass Tyson

I have thought for a long time about 'truth', what it is and how to know it. Many things have a claim to 'truth' but the honesty of these declarations, all various and in disagreement, speak only on the obscurity of 'truth'. What holds fidelity in all contexts about 'truth' is that it is equivalent to reality and absolute certainty. There is no error in 'truth', it is the absolute security of fact and foundation and seemingly, by notions entirely self evident, Neil deGrasse Tyson holds a piece o

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Isaac Newton Appreciation post

Some time ago, I wrote a research paper about Isaac Newton for a social studies class. I did not investigate my topic well until after I handed my ill-researched paper in, a poor choice on my part but my curiosity about the subject did not leave me. I began by read a few articles, just enough to have a partial idea of what it was I should have wrote about and the figure I had neglected to properly study. Isaac Newton had a hand in optics, classical physics, and the creation of his laws of motion

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Kinematics Test Eulogy

So on the twenty first of September in the year two thousand seventeen, anno domini we lost many good men to a test. What's important now, moving unwearyingly forward, is to not lose heart. Our forerunners have been through similar sorts so although our path may seem an onerous, impossible kind, a capable hand and mutual counsel will bring us fruition. Keep in mind that retakes are available, studying is worthwhile and AP physics C is a community. In this dreadful hour, we are not merely alone b

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LaTex Help.

So by now most, if not everyone has completed a proper LaTex lab report for a basic measuring circles experience. I cannot know but all the more suspect that people may have had problems with LaTex. I for one had a bit of trouble last-minute getting my PDF printed so maybe I'm awkward with this tool or inexperienced with LaTex. What I could have used before was a helpful bit of information concerning the ins and outs of LaTex which I am certain a few overzealous students are well versed in. Anyw

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Social Facilitation in the Classroom

Group work has become especially prevalent in the classroom of '17. As teams form, a psychological phenomenon can be observed under the right conditions, social facilitation. The performance of individuals in the presence of others, in other words as a group, tends to be better on doing simple tasks rather than complex or abstract thinking. In physics C, it is quite often we learn new information and thus the performance of the group with ill-rehearsed tasks and problems will most likely degrade

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Loafin' Around

In opposition to social facilitation there is a second case of phenomenon called social loafing. We have all heard, known or experienced of that individual in media or real life group that slacks off, we may be that person. Now this individual is not a wicked sort nor has the capacity to know what exactly could be afoot, like many of us, they act out of circumstance. As study groups form in the physics classroom this may become manifest over time. Social loafing pertains to the perceived decreas

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Diffusion of Responsibility

As people begin to join into larger groups, the very size may become a problem itself. Before the year is too far underway, it is important to note that the size of the group in question in particular causes diffusion of responsibility. Sometimes in groups of three or more, individuals feel less motivation to achieve something or work towards an end, often relying on others to complete a task as they feel the same in turn. Groups also may allow things to occurs as a result of inaction, believing

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Physics in Ap Chem

A friend of mine expressed her misplaced disgust upon seeing the kinetic energy equation, K = 1/2*m(v^2), on one of the Ap Chem packets. Regardless, the kinetic energy helps define the energy gained or lost in a reaction in the form of heat. If it helps, one can think of heat as the kinetic energy of molecules in random directions. If matter is energetic enough, it may undergo phase changes. This is also a form of internal energy, the work that is performed on the surroundings by a reaction beco

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Fall Damage

When someone falls under normal circumstances, they collide with the ground with a certain measure of force and that same force is applied on the person as in Newton's third law. The force applied to a falling person is not instantaneous, but transferred through impulse, it is essentially a change in momentum. So the force of the fall that causes the second highest amount of accidental death in the world is dependent on the impulse or J=FΔT upon impact. The time-span of the impact diminishes the

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Ideal Gas Law

PV = nRT is the written equation for the ideal gas law and I think it would be useful if we could talk about what is really happening in this equation.  Now, an ideal gas is described in a theoretical outline that pretty much just says that a gas made of particles would have elastic collisions and no intermolecular forces hampering its expansion to a certain volume. This model is useful because it ignores some of the more delicate issues of gases by making assumptions. Ok so for the PV

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People Never Believed The Earth Was Flat, Until Now

A common underestimation of our forebears in their histories and scientific achievements is that it was common in many archaic cosmological models that the Earth was a flat, disc-like plane. Without a doubt, there are people that persist to this very space-age day that trust in a flat Earth but it was in no way exclusively an ancient phenomenon or a common one. Even with few scientific instruments, the elder humans, unequipped with the internet and latest edition of The AP Physics C Companion: M

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Physics Blogs, what happened? (please forgive me, i mean well)

You know its just nice to be here, blogging with my physics fellows and learning new things in a great class environment but real talk, before the second quarter closes on all of my fat head, I just wanted to say that I think that these physics blogs are great, an excellent creative opportunity to connect the dots, so to speak, on the physics topics we've learned. However I feel that not everybody is getting enough out of them for their own sake. These blogs while not necessarily throwaways can

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The Leyden Jar

As the nature of electricity was investigated into the eighteenth century through static electricity and to a certain extent the triboelectric effect, it was only natural that the discovery of electric charge and capacitance would follow. Independently, three scientists named Ewald Georg von Kleist, Pieter van Musschenbroek and Andreas Cunaeus. A machine of sorts, one that would supply charge through triboelectric electric effect by friction, would transfer the charge to two conducting, metallic

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I am bad student (Yeet)

If you are familiar with me, I am not a good person. I say "I aim to please" but far too often I miss the mark (and possibly end up letting loose a shot that nabs someone in the knee). These past two weeks I have not had a Blue's clue what to do with myself our how to move on from one assignment to another when I realize the bitter reality that my work is mediocre and I do not have the excuse of saying I put forth my best. While I suppose I perform well enough for some merit, I fall woefully sho

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Madman Speculations part 1 (WARNING: Actually Insane)

Okay dear readers, put on your tinfoil caps, wave goodbye to the friendly NSA agents and put a piece of tape over your webcam because I have a theory that may cause the collapse of organized society as we know it so listen up, you may just weep with profound enlightenment and then go to your local grocer for some Tylenol P.M. for that philosophy insomnia. Know bear in mind this is not founded on any fact or science, I thought this would be more of an exercise in 'metaphysics' or something of the

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Generators, Enough Said

We live in an electric world and knowing a thing or two about the contraptions that sustain the way of living in this era may help a few of us reconstruct society after a devastating impact event so let us get to the point. Electric generators simply convert the force of motion into current using magnets. When the link between magnetism and electricity was discovered and became electromagnetism, generators followed soon after using electrostatics (triboelectric effect and electrostatic induction

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How to Get The Most Out of Studying

1.a. Learning is fast, knowledge is composed of isolated facts, being good at a subject is inborn and I'm really good at multitasking. b. The second belief because many natural occurrences operate on the same dynamic laws and metrics. c. Metacognition helps us understand the way we think and improve those aspects of cognition. 2.a. The intention to learn, paying close attention to the course material as you study, following as learning style, time spent learning. b Commitment

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