licrane

The sky's the limit

What would you do if you could time travel ?

Awesome

Time to get pumped up for the test !

Excellent !

I was just walking on the beach yesterday, they really do get hot !

I must say that i actually will be missing this class.

I love swimming too, but wow! i never realized there was so much to it!

I never realized so much went into the simple act of walking! but I guess since physics is everything after all. I hope that cat didn't get hurt too badly!

Kaleidoscopes use light and mirrors to reflect objects that create patterns. There are multitudes of different varieties and types, but they all follow the same basic principles of physics. To make a kaleidoscope, you would need some type of round, hollow material and two to four mirrors to put inside of it. Aluminum foil can also be used as a reflector. On one end of a kaleidoscope, there is an object container that holds the objects to be reflected. Then this can be closed off with plastic or glass. This layer of clear material not only holds the objects in, but also filters light through to reflect off of the objects. Some versions of the kaleidoscope toy rotate to easier change the position of the objects located inside. When you look through the hole of a kaleidoscope, light filters through the glass or plastic on the end of the device and then illuminates the objects and reflects them off of the mirrors or other reflective material. Your eye then sees these bouncing reflections, which creates the patterns that you see. This simple, but fascinating toy has brought joy and wonder into the lives of people for hundreds of years.

This is the Compton Effect. And no, it doesn't have anything to do with the hometown of the NWA. No, the compton effect is the term given to the increase in wavelength that occurs when photons interact with electrons in a material. The high energy that photons possess can be transferred to electrons and gives them enough energy to be launched out of the atom, and for a photon containing the remaining energy to be emitted in a different direction than the original. This way the overall momentum is conserved. If the photon still contains enough energy, this process can be repeated. The wavelength of the photons increases because of the decrease in their energy. Because of their change in direction, there can be a slight scattering, usually referred to as "Compton Scattering." In a material where some electrons are free, this effect will occur at all photon energies and hence all wavelengths. The importance of this effect is that it provides evidence to the now proven theory that light is not only a wave phenomenon, but also has particle properties as well. The Compton Effect has occassionally been proposed as an explanation for the idea of the "Redshift" (by opposers of the Big Bang Theory. This isn't normally accepted, however, because the influence of the effect would be noticeable in the spectral lines of other objects, and this has not been observed.

Lightning is a phenomenon that has been occurring for thousands of years, but today most people don't know a whole lot about how or why it happens. To put it simply, lightning is the result of a buildup of electrical charge that happens in clouds created from water vapor. Research suggests that a strong negative charge tends to build up toward the bottom of clouds, and most of the positive charge located in clouds collects nearer to the top portion of them. A "step leader" then begins to be formed as excess electrons start their journey down from the ground. This leader forks off in different directions for a reason that is unknown at present, but is suspected to be the differing conductivity of different particles in the air. The path that is being formed here is not the lightning itself, but in fact is only the pathway that it will eventually follow. As the negatively charged reach down to the earth, the amount of positive charge on the portion of the earth will begin to increase, and this charge will eventually start to travel up to the tops of buildings, trees, and all other objects in the area, toward the negative charge in the air that is gathering. This upward rising charge is known as a "streamer." Once the streamer comes into contact with the leader, the pathway for the lightning is completed and it can make a descent from its cloud. These lightning bolts can travel at speeds up to 50,000 miles per second and can also contain currents in the tens of thousands of amperes and voltages in the hundreds of millions of volts, making them incredibly dangerous. The sound that accompanies lightning is a result of the large and extremely fast flow of charge, which heats the air and causes it to rapidly expand. This expansion creates a shock wave that we know as thunder.

I'm not completely sure about that, but I would assume that it would have to be placed at least level with the top of the cup.

Wow, i never would've guessed !

The drinking bird novelty item has been around for decades, but it's seemingly simple design is deceptive. Carefully calculated physics principles have gone into the creation of this toy. Mostly, it utilizes energy conversion, operating as a heat engine that changes heat energy from water into mechanical work. The drinking bird design is made up of several important components: -two glass bulbs of equal size attached on either end of a glass tube -a fuzzy, absorbent material to cover the bird's head -two plastic legs connected to the body with a pivot -a small amount of methylene chloide (industrial paint stripper and solvent) liquid in the bottom glass bulb -either a red or a blue hat, depending on the model For the toy to work, the felt tip on the bird's beak must be dipped into a cup of water, which then allows it to absorb a small amount of that water. As the water in its beak evaporates, the temperature in it goes down, which causes the methylene chloride vapor to condense. When this happens, liquid from the bottom bulb is forced upward, toward the head and beak portion. Then, as liquid enters the head, the bird becomes top-heavy and slowly begins to tip forward once again. As the drinking bird does tip, the rest of the liquid goes to the bird's head and the bottom portion of the tube isn't submerged any more. Vapor then travels back up the tube which will then cause the head to drain of liquid again. As the bottom glass bulb is filled with liquid again, the bird becomes more bottom heavy and the entire process begins again.

Looking back at my childhood, some of my fondest memories were those sunny days when my siblings and I could just run around and blow bubbles. It was so amazing to us how we could create something so entertaining out of the simple soap solution. To go along with the mystery of making bubbles, we always were perplexed by how the bubbles always had a shimmery rainbow color to them. As kids we wrote it off as magic, but now I know that there are laws of physics at work here. The reason that soap bubbles have their colorful sheen has to do with the physics of light. When our eyes pick up ordinary light, like light from the sun for instance, it appears to us to be white. In reality, however, this light that we are seeing is actually comprised of an entire spectrum of colors. Each color possesses a different wavelength of electromagnetic radiation, but we can only see a tiny portion these. The wavelengths of light that we can see is called the "visible spectrum," and is made up of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Rays of light travel in straight lines, but when they encounter obstacles one of several things can happen. If light comes to a reflective surface, like a mirror, it will bounce back. A collision with an opaque surface will cause light to be blocked, and this is what forms shadows. If there is a hole in that opaque surface, this will cause the light to diffract through that hole and spread out to the other side. Diffraction is defined as the bending of light as it passes around an object. When light rays pass from one medium to another, some rays bounce back while others go through. The parts of the light that pass through usually change direction through this process, bending at the point that the two mediums meet. This kind of bending of light is called refraction, and this is what is responsible for the "rainbows" seen in bubbles. Bubbles function as a transparent medium that forces light to bend when it passes through it. The bending that occurs allows us to see some of the different colors that make up the rays of white light. In this way, bubbles act as delicate floating prisms, that separate the wavelengths of the light and allow us to see them as colors.

Oh hah, that's right. Sorry, sir. Frankie is so physics.

I love animals, I love learning how things work. (:

So this doesn't have to do with physics, but I love Frank Ocean.

Hi, I'm Lily and I'm a junior. I love music and all things art. I enjoy connections. Whenever you can connect something you've read or heard to something in your own life, I love. I like thinking, and thinking about how other people think. I have a small obsession with flowers and leaves.. I just have to pick them up and look at them. I like things that are soft and things that make me smile. Last Sunday, I moved here from across the country and I've never been so unsure about anything and everything. Anyway, that's a little about me and I know that you aren't supposed to start so many sentences with "I"s, but I couldn't help it. I took physics initially because that's what my counselor put me in, but after the first two days of class I can honestly say that I'm a little excited for it now. Like I said before, I really enjoy connections.. and from what I've heard about physics so far, it seems to be full of them. I hope to learn about some of these different connections, so that I can better understand the world around me. I feel that this class is definitely going to be fun, but also challenging. A challenge is a good thing though, because that's the only way you can grow.