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  1. I am hard at studying and then my brain starts to wander and before I know it I am on YouTube; the site that can cause any determined student to suddenly lose all concentration. And then somehow through the incredible maze of related videos I find myself at a video showing how to win a pinewood derby race with science. Little did I know that it would serve as review with plentiful information on the conservation of energy and also how both Potential and Kinetic energy affect the car. The video goes to show how potential energy, which is dependent mostly of height, is transferred into kinetic energy as it travels down the track and gains speed. It also shows how some of the potential energy is transferred into heat energy through friction. It then explains how to make the fastest car you want to start with the most potential energy and get the most of that energy transferred into kinetic energy, which is dependent mostly on velocity. To maximize potential energy the weight is placed toward the top of the car. To reduce the amount of energy lost the car rides on three wheels instead of four.

  2. In Dragon Ball Z, whenever a character transforms into a powered up state, their hair becomes golden and they're referred to as "Super Saiyans". There a few different forms of Super Saiyan, but in the clip, I've linked, Gohan goes SS2. When a character transforms, they begin to produce a powerful aura that destroys and lifts the ground around it, causing debris to fly up and float around the character, and for the earth to shatter underneath them. This means that the aura itself is so powerful that the force of it alone is enough to break the ground and launch it through the air. That is absolutely insane, I can't even pick up the ground with my arms.

  3. It's like 10:30 at night and I am so tired and don't want to do this. But since I only have one left (I think) and it's very trivial if I want to pass, I will do it. The only problem is, I don't know what to write about. I could write about how we were wearing power rangers t-shirts. You wore one but so did I, a different color. And so was Moey, and his brother. I have already talked about everything that I do. All I ever do is play hockey and video games because I'm lame, so lets see what else there is.

    Let's talk about circular motion. I have this friend of mine who can be a really good driver sometimes, but when he gets too energetic, can be very wreckless. He likes to drift in parking lots with FEMALES in the car and putting their lives in danger. When drifting your car can hydroplane or just lose traction on your back tires, and then you begin to spin. When I last drifted (yes, it has happened multiple times. Sometimes on purpose some) we flew around a pole in a parking lot in a circular motion. Since we were spinning in a circle, the centripetal force will always be pointing to the center or in this case the pole. Also if we were to lose traction of the front tires too, our velocity would continue tangent to the circle. So if your friend ever decides to drift, or you egg him on by saying things like "you won't push 80 on this main road", just know that your velocity will go tangent to the circle.

    That's all I got for y'all now I'll be back next quarter to do 5 in one sitting, last minute. Goodbye

  4. Alex Wilson
    Latest Entry

    Lately in the video game world there has been a lot of purposefully bad simulator games: Surgeon Simulator and Rock Simulator to name a couple. Now, there is a sim game called I AM BREAD. In the game you play as, well, bread. Duh. The purpose of every level is to become toast and stay edible. The best part of the game is that it has really wonky controls. Also, the physics make little sense. The bread you play as has grip and can climb walls. It also seems to be a rather heavy mass since it can break bottles and push bowling balls around. The series Teens React has a video with it:

    My favorite part is that they all ask "Wait, so I'm the bread?"

  5. colbydick
    Latest Entry

    Batman, being one of the few comic book heroes without actual powers, has connected with thousands of people over the years because of this fact. Instead of using Super-strength or Super-speed he relies on his superior intellect and gadgets to defeat his enemies. Most notable of his gadgets is his cape. His cape has gone through several changes over the years. From being just plain cloth, to fireproof and bulletproof cloth , to being given a flexible skeleton to use as a glider. The latter can exist in the real world because it acts just as a hang glider works. By increasing the surface area of his falling self there is more drag due to air friction thus slowing his decent to a gentle glide. So, if given the technological means, gliding vigilantes could exist in this world.

  6. mitchbertch
    Latest Entry

    Although it may not seem like much, there are a lot of physics involved with eating a donut. First, you have to apply a force on the donut when you pick it up and raise it to your mouth. Since the average donut weighs in at about .04 kg, it takes about .4 newtons to lift a donut. it also takes roughly .4 Joules to lift a donut from the table to your head. lastly, if you bite really hard into the donut, you will exert anywhere from 500-700 newtons. that means the donut bites back with the same amount of force. So next time somebody makes fun of you for eating a donut, just tell them how much work it takes.

  7. haley13
    Latest Entry

    football connects to physics in several ways. Physics is demonstrated when the football is being thrown, the speed the ball is going, and the distance the ball is being thrown. People watch football on the weekends and focus on how many yards gained, who wins the game, but don't realize how much physics is involved if you really think about it.

  8. aschu103
    Latest Entry

    The hardest thing we do every day - waking up and getting out of bed.

    Newton's first law states that things at rest are likely to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Whether that force is our alarm clock, angry parents, or the panic of sleeping in a few minutes too late, it can be hard to get moving. Most days it's better to just lay in bed and hope that your homework does itself.

    However, Newton's law doesn't apply in the first few minutes after getting up - once you're in motion, it's very easy to go back to sleep. This is because of a phenomenon known as the "Sleepy Teenager Complex," caused by too much homework and not enough time to do all of it while still completing necessary functions.

    To this day, a cure for Sleepy Teenager Complex continues to allude us.

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    miranda15
    Latest Entry

    During the winter time some people like to take advantage of the snow on the ground. I'm not one of those people but there is still physics involved in this activity. When a person is stopped at the top of the hill they have a very high potential energy. They are sitting there waiting to move but they are not yet in motion. As they slide down the hill they have a very high potential energy because they are in motion. To find their exact kinetic energy a person could use the equation KE=1/2mvâ—˜

  9. If there is any question the assassin's creed games poses its: Is it possible to pass down memories through DNA? How would such a thing be possible even with our years of evolution? The science behind DNA coding and current experiments may surprise you.

  10. ASayasone
    Latest Entry

    I remember being brought to the batting cages a couple times over the summer when I was younger. Not being interested in baseball at all, and still not being that interested, it was still a fun experience. In a batting cage, it's yourself, a bat, and this machine which shoots baseballs. The entire purpose is for you to try and hit the baseball, and there's net surrounding you so the baseball doesn't escape once you've hit it. So at a batting cage, there's a bunch of physics, such as how the baseball will travel towards you at a certain velocity, and then you'll swing the bat at a certain velocity with a certain force, and if you've aimed correctly, both the bat and baseball will come in contact and apply a force onto each other. After that, the ball travels in the opposite direction which it had been thrown at. If you had wanted to find its velocity for whatever reason, you could have someone time when the ball had been hit, and the time it stayed in the air and finally hit the ground, already knowing the acceleration, and measuring the distance, you'd use an equation such as vf=vi+at or vf^2=vi^2+2ad. One thing I learned from the experience is that you should also wear gloves because the force from the ball can hurt your hand after you've hit it, this being because of friction between the bat and your hands.

  11. There's tons of physics in volleyball. But the most recent physics I've noticed is that after really long plays the ball is actually warm. This shows transfer of energy. The energy from the players is transferred to the ball which after a while can make the ball warm.

  12. blog-0403387001415817841.jpgI was biking down a hill once on my way to Herremma's Market and I slipped of the sidewalk and into the grass. Since the grass has more friction than the pavement, i fell off my bike and onto the grass because gravity pulled me down.
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    I recall standing near one of two doors to the auditorium on a Sunday Afternoon, waiting on people to arrive. it was not until 1:45 until people started to swarm in. Ripping up tickets and providing programs, I was busy at work making sure that people would feel welcome inside the dark chamber. The performance itself was based off of a child's book, reimagined, and transformed into the musical known as Frog and Toad. yet all that mattered to me at the time was dealing with ticketwork and getting the viewers in.

    Yet at the same time, i wasn't responsible for every single viewer. No, instead some funneled in through the alternative door, while others seated themselves onto the balcony on the second floor. So if i didn't have to manage every ticket, how could i predict where people would enter? That's where physics comes in.

    As it is known, Vectors are quantities of both magnitude and direction. Near my door, i could figure which people would check through me through the direction in which they took to reach the auditorium. If they entered through the main entrance and through the commons (presumably eastward), it would have been unlikely that they would have entered through my door, since it was more situated towards an entranceon the left of the building. Should they have entered through that entrance ( which was southward), they would have more likely checked in with me. Another thing i noticed was the magnitude of their movement. I noticed that generally people were more rushed the closer it was to show time; a sign that they moved faster.

    In all, by observing this, I was able to take something as absurd as being a volunteer, and use physics to make the job easier. with the assistance of vectors, i could keep myself reminded that not every person would be checking in with me.

  13. In this video my group and I were test trying out our catapult at an approximate angle of 45 degrees which we hoped would of increased our distance. Projectile displacement is also present in this video, but also the force of gravity which then brings down the softball.

  14. Kgraham30
    Latest Entry

    when I walk gravity is always acting on me. all day long physics is acting on my body. when you fall you experience this because you are always being tied to the earth by gravity. when you jump in the air your being effected by gravity because you don't just keep going up into space. gravity is constantly bringing you back down to earth. also when you are falling you are constantly falling at a rate of 9.81 m/s2 down once you reach terminal velocity however you can no longer accelerate. however you will most likely not survive the fall at this point.

  15. Harrison
    Latest Entry

    Today I want to tell you why punching a wall is always a bad idea, sometimes when we are mad and don't think clearly we hit a wall to release said anger without harming anyone, I guess thinking the wall will brake under the force. I'm here to tell you it won't harm anyone....but yourself. Admittedly our train of thought is clouded when we are mad but we must never forget that all forces come in pair of equal magnitude and opposite direction. This is VERY important because although most would think the wall is a static object and cant apply a force it does the exact opposite it will apply the same force you apply to it. So if you have the bright idea of pouncing a wall with say the force of 1000 newton's that wall will apply a 1000 newton force to you and most likely brake your hand. So next time you're mad remember newton's 3rd law and be civilized use a hammer to break down that wall.

  16. Z824's Blog

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    Z824
    Latest Entry

    Mountain Biking has an endless list of things that are physics, from the static friction of rolling tire to kinetic friction of a tire skidding to the force applied by your feet on the pedals or the force applied by your fingers on the brake levers. I bike a lot in summer and even sometimes in the winter, but the best story I have of biking pertaining to physics took place on a rainy summer day. My friend and I were biking and we got to a board walk and both had the same idea, that wet board walk is going to be really slippery lets go screw around on it. Well I dart over to the board walk and rather cautiously proceeded on it, then I had the great idea to kick out the back tire on the slippery surface little did I know the Kinetic co-efficient was much lower than the static co-efficient on this surface, and when I kick out the back tire it came around so fast I was on the ground with my friend laughing at me before I knew what had happened. My friend also clearly having no idea whatsoever of the physics in play, calls me another word for an idiot and rides onto the board walk and kicks out the back and ends up laying on his back on the ground just as fast as I did and never has being insulted been more satisfying.

    Biking also has tons to do with air resistance and gravity for example the fastest speed I can hit normally on some of the biggest hills around my neighborhood is about 32mph this is the speed where the force of gravity can no longer overcome the drag that is created by myself and my bike and when this happens equilibrium is reached and I continue at a near-constant speed until the hill subsides.

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    Sabrinademarco
    Latest Entry

    My sister and I were leaving the store and we decided to have a race back to the car. I told her that I could get there first and she claimed that she could. My initial velocity was 3 m/s and hers was 2 m/s. The distance was a mere 20 feet. I got to the car within 10 seconds and she got there in thirteen seconds. I, of course, won the race. Due to my starting velocity being greater than hers, although both accelerations were constant.

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    Sabrinademarco
    Latest Entry

    So, recently for physics we were assigned a project of constructing a catapult to help us better understand the concept of projectile motion. This project taught me a lot. On the day of the launch, we got a certain distance that the softball we shot went, we had a certain initial velocity and final velocity and also a certain time it took to go x distance. The acceleration was constant. This helped us relate to what we were learning in class about projectile motion because it was a first hand experience of it.

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    A few years ago, it was fall and my dad was making my neighbor clean the leaves out of our gutters. My neighbor had to climb a distance of 30 feet to get on top of the roof. While he was up there, he accidentally slipped. He fell with a constant acceleration of 9.81 m/s ^2 due to gravity. And his speed was .5 meters per second for the whole two seconds it took him to reach the ground. He was very upset after he fell, but he was alright.

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    So, the other day I was walking down my driveway after it had just rained. I was in a rush to get to school because I have physics everyday, which I just love so much. While on the way to my car I slipped and fell. I fell due to the low amount of friction my shoes against the slippery driveway had, or in this case didn't have. The smoother something is, the less friction it has. This is called the nature of the surface. Kinetic friction is what friction while sliding is called and static friction is not sliding.

  17. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/americas-new-particle-collider-is-one-foot-long

    The Cern particle collider is 17 miles long, the Chinese have announced work on a 49 mile long particle accelerator.

    But, using plasma - a foot long particle accelerator has been invented. it's not perfect, but it will be improved upon.

    Yes, you can now do particle acceleration experiments in the size of a large sandwich.

  18. Or more like shape OF the universe! The only book I read anymore is The Cosmic Cocktail by Katherine Freeze, and one topic she came upon was the shape of the universe.

    This topic is a very hard one to think of in your head, because its hard to imagine a universe in which we live in expanding! Yet as I showed in another blog post, Hubble himself showed that it must be expanding since galaxies are growing farther away from us!

    So then what just shape are we expanding from?? Or Into??? Well there are three options we have. If the density of the universe is less than the critical mass density (found in proportion to the square of Hubble's constant then we are left with a negatively curved geometry, like a saddle. If it matches the mass found from Hubble's constant than we are left with a flat geometry like a piece of paper. But if the density is greater than the one we expect, we are left with a spherical geometry.

    Flat geometry is the one Einstein preferred because is it easiest to work with a flat axis instead of a curved one. The effects of these different geometries are interesting though. For example, if the universe was spherical than there would not be enough mass (and density) so after expanding a "Big Crunch" will occur after the Big Bang and the universe will collapse on itself. The other two options are not AS sad though. The flat and hyperboloid geometries on the other hand will continue to expand forever! This will lead to a big chill since the universe will be so expansive and will never stop. I did say as.

    The obvious evidence points to flat, the simple answer. It has good evidence behind it though, if the universe was spherical the "Big Crunch" would have happened extremely soon after and there would not have been enough time for the galaxies and such to form! Also a hyperboloid geometry would have led to a much faster expansion than seen a the "Big Chill" would have lead to the same result.

    The numerical evidence behind flat geometry is iffy at best though, and is also very complicated, so stay tuned for next time when you can decide for yourself if our universe is like a pancake or a basketball!

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    A couple of days prior to this post I was at a friends house which I had rode to on my bike, however during the time that I was at my friends place it had started to rain. During my ride home I reached a fairly tall and steep, due to the slicked rode I sped up and was unable to control it very well. I was able to control it enough to not land head first on the concrete however I did land head first into a bush. Soon after that we had a lesson and corresponding video on friction which helped show as to why I wiped out hilariously. Because of the water the friction between the bike tires and the ground decreased leading to a much more slick situation. maybe next time I will just call for a ride

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