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physics on bike riding
Since in the summer all I mostly do is ride my bike I thought why not see how physics relates to bike riding. When I ride my bike, I find myself doing no work at all at times and then actually having to do work. After taking physics I finally realized why this is.
Gravity, is one main factor while riding a bike. When you are to go down a hill, gravity is doing all the work for you pulling the front of your bike down the hill. Gravity will always be greater than the friction, and weight you are fighting through. Friction when going down the hill is very minimal between the spinning tire and the ground. But when you are going up the hill you are doing a lot more work because you are fighting between friction, gravity, and weight.
Gravity will always be something you have to fight through no matter what your doing because it will always be there.
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Monopoles: What Are They?
In working through the Magnetism unit, one really good question came to surface; Is it possible to have a magnet with only one pole? What would it mean to have a monopole after all?
Monopoles are essentially a theoretical particle, an isolated magnet with only one magnetic pole. This would mean that the particle would have a net magnetic charge. What would that mean in simple terms? The notion that the magnetic field has zero divergence would be proven wrong; in fact, magnetic particles would most likely behave even more similarly to electric particles, in that not only would magnetic particles have two opposing charges, but, in the same manner negatively and positively charged particles exist, north and south pole magnetic particles would also exist; the "south pole magnets" and "north pole magnets" would not have to cancel out, a rule already accepted in physics today.
What do you guys think? What would the discovery of a monopole (if one exists) mean for what we already understand about electromagnetism?
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Music and waves and parties
Music is cool. speaking of music, listen to this for some ambiance.
Why is music so cool though?
Because waves.
A wave is pretty much the movement of energy. If thats so, than what is sound?
Sound is a type of wave caused by a vibration.
In the case of music an instrument, or ones own vocal chords, can produce vibrations which then travel through the air as waves eventually reaching your eardrum.
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Tornadoes
The physics of tornadoes is very interesting. It all has to do with pressure and angular momentum. When air is heated it expands causing the density to decrease. This decrease in density combined with the higher density air around it causes the heated pocket to rise. The surrounding air then rushes in to fill the void and a tornado is born. The tornado is perpetuated by its own angular momentum.To learn more check out http://outreach.phas.ubc.ca/phas420/p420_04/sean/
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Physics of blogging
Don't spend your life trying to find a place where fisics doesn’t apply because it doesn't exist. Not even when you are blogging. When blogging you are most likely sitting at a chair and typing on a keyboard. This applies to Newton’s third law that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. As you sit in the chair to blog you apply a force, your weight, to the chair and the chair pushes back up at you with an equal force. This also happens when you press on the keys to type. As you push on the keys they push back with an equal force. If this law wasn’t true blogging would be fairly difficult considering you would fall through chairs and break keys on the key board. Existence in general would be hard without this law. This isn’t however the only fisics to blogging because inside a computer is almost every subject to fisics ranging from thermodynamics and fluids in the cooling system, magnetism and energy in the wiring of it, waves because there is light and sound waves emitted, circular motion in the fan and modern fisics due to the atoms that build and keep the computer together.
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The first of many...
Greetings fellow physics students and/or insane persons (yes, I mean you),
Well, so much for senioritis, eh? Taking AP Physics-C kind of prevents me from doing nothing. So why take the class if it prevents me from, well, enjoying, my last year? You know, that is a question I've asked myself multiple times, and I've narrowed it down to three answers. It may be one or a combination, but here they are:
1) I enjoy science and math.
2) I need physics for my major and I want to get it over with as soon as possible, and it looks great for college nevertheless.
3) I'm out of my mind.
I would normally gravitate (heh, get it? It's gravity, heh, physics. You know what never mind) towards that third answer there, but actually, now that I think about it, those first two seem like legitimate reasons, considering that I do want to go to college and major in neuroscience - you know, all that brainy stuff. I have always enjoyed science and math, and have always wanted answers - and precise ones - not just random riddles and nonsense (ahem). Anyway, this class will give me answers, and I'm looking forward to them, though I suspect that I will get answers to questions that I really don't want the answers to. Sure, it may not click right away, I don't expect it to, but I'm sure it will come...eventually. I also do need physics for my field of interest, and I'd rather get it over with now than in college. I'm not saying that that's my only reason and I'm forcing myself through this, but, yeah, it's up there. Lastly, I'm just simply crazy. Taking this class is definitely not the only reason, but it is one of the biggest ones. I had only heard nothing but complaints about the class and how difficult it was. Now, since I took AP-B last year, I could've decided not to take another physics class, and just relax. I actually had a choice, and for some reason I chose the hard work and the suffering over blissful sleep, and ignorance, I guess. Now that I am in the class, I realize that I am anxious about the whole class, and passing the exam. It will definitely be a great challenge, but I will push on through every challenge, like I always do. Hm, maybe that says something deep and important...nah, who am I kidding, I'm just crazy XD
But really, in all the seriousness I can muster, I'm looking forward to this class, despite all the challenges. It will definitely enlighten me, teach me not only the material, but valuable life skills, and it will help me in the future - in college and farther still.
So, wish me luck!
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A Generational Approach To Student Loan Debt
While physics is not for everyone, there are hundreds of students in high school who genuinely love it. It is one of the more difficult subjects to get through, but it can feel very rewarding when you start to learn and understand what it's really all about. Many of these students come to enjoy it so much that they desire to go on to further schooling in college to earn a degree in physics.
For these students, and anyone applying for college, the tuition costs can be mind-boggling. Because of this, almost twelve million Americans attending school use some form of student aid to pay for school. However, if you do not know how to use financial aid properly, it can translate into a lot of loans, which then means thousands of dollars in debt. For students just coming out of high school, this is the last thing that they want to be hearing. Instead of becoming part of the statistics, find out more with this infographic and get informed on student loan debt.
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Physics Boarding
So i was chillin with my boi shabba, when we were like yo lets go longboarding. So we grabbed our yatchs and headed to the local chapel hill. Now while pushing we can hit a speed (according to the speed gauges in the road) of about 15 miles per hour. Which is roughly 6.7056 meters per second. Which is relativly fast. Also, courtesy of the speed gauges, that at the end of the hill we hit speed of 33 miles per hour, which is roughly 14.75 meters per second. We were disapointed that we couldnt even hit the speed limit of 35 miles per hour, but whatevs. Using this information and the principle of conservation of energy, we can find out the hieght of chapel hill. So check this out, conservation of energy states that mgh= 1/2mv^2. Sooooooo if we plug in our values for velocity and gravity, mass becomes negligable, and we end up with a hieght of 11.1 meters. Now that seems short because i did not take in account the friction between the wheels and the pavement considering we haven't learned rolling friction. Not to mention the friction within the bearings oin the wheels themselves. So the hills A LOT taller as im sure many of you can attest to. I guess at those speeds Shabba and I best be careful.
The Danskster out.
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AED
When saving someones life using an AED is a good idea but only if you do it right. You put the pads on the upper right and lower left. You do this because the shock wants to go the ground. The shock comes out of both pads and wants to travel to the other pad. The heart can only take so much current before it shorts out and cannot be revived. The current that passes through the heart of an AED is just enough to get anyones heart going as long as you get there in time. After the shock is administered then the AED monitors the body to see if there are any vibrations and to check the frequency of the waves to see if they are in rhythm, it they are you saved there life, if not do it again.
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rochester driving weather
it is obvious that our winters are not like those in miami. We can have some very harsh weather and it is important to be prepared when driving from place to place in the ice and snow. To be safe, car maufacrures must consider the elements of friction. This is why many cars have for wheel drive: for better traction on the ice. A car going down the road would qualify as kinetic friction and since the ice has little friction so the nature of the ice must be balanced. Another way to prevent accidents on an icy road would be by putting salt on the road to change the nature of the ice and create a greater frictional force.
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Star Wars and Physics
It's been quite a while since I've seen a Star Wars movie, but I still remember the necessities from all the movies. It doesn't take a physics prodigy to understand that there are many physically-impossible aspects of the series, but its good to use the imagination every once in a while and ignore these impracticalities. Nonetheless, I can use my knowledge of physics thus far to analyze certain parts of the series. First of all, when the tie-fighters and x-wings explode in the movies, they make a tremendous amount of noise. However, knowing that sound cannot travel through a vacuum (in space) we know that the explosions would be silent. George Lucas, being a smart man, probably already knew this, but nobody wants to watch space ships silently explode. Furthermore, the concept of hyperspace is introduced in the fourth film. Through breakthrough special effects, the audience is encouraged to believe that the characters travel enormous distances in matter of seconds. Knowing that the speed of light, the fastest thing in the universe, (more so than the Millennium Falcon), is only 3.00 x 10^8 m/s, it seems highly unlikely that the characters could transport so fast.
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Tokyo Drift
Drifting is when a driver oversteers,or the car exceeds its tire's limits of adhesion, to cause a loss of traction in the rear wheels, when the rear slip angle of a car is greater than the front slip angle. In doing so the front wheels point in the opposite direction of the turn, the car is going left but the wheels are pointed right. Every time we turn a vehicle we resist the change of direction due to Inertia. Simply put, inertia is the amount of resistance to a change in velocity or momentum. Newton's first law of motion connects to this because he said that an object at rest stays at rest or continue with constant velocity unless acted upon by an outside force. So an object will continue as it was unless some external force comes in and messes everything up. Inertia is most often masked by effects of friction and air resistance both decrease speed of moving objects and gravity.The friction between the tires and the road and allow the front wheels to break traction. Turning the steering wheel in the opposite direction, intertia of the car that is trying to slide in the opposite direction is added to the force applied by the engine and the friction of traction between the tires and the road. If the car is front-wheel drive, the rear tires weigh less so they break traction first which causes the rear to slide out. Lifting the throttle makes another weight transfer and enables the rear wheel to weigh even less. Such physics was applied in the movie Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift. the main character had to master the physics of drifting to beat the antagonist. This called from some amazing racing/drifting scenes. Physics is everywhere whether we acknowledge it or not. But be careful when trying to drift - no saying that you should try, honestly I can't stop you- if the center of gravity is too high you will roll over instead of sliding.
Drifting scene from Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift :
Learn to drift:
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The physics of ping pong
Many people enjoy the game of ping pong such as myself. Ping pong can relate to physics such as forces and acceleration. Because the ball will always be the same mass one must use a larger force on te paddle to make the bal accelerate faster. In order to win the point, you must have a larger velocity than the initial velocity which is the velocity coming from the oponent. In order to do this you must have a larger acceleration therefore use a larger force
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Physics of Speakers
Speakers contain an electromagnet which is a coil of wire that the current flows through. First, it starts with a battery and then moves into the coil of wire. When the magnet vibrates the air molecules start moving and create waves. The waves then produce the sound that you can hear. Also there is energy transfer in a speaker. For example, the phone has electric and chemical potential energy because its a chemical reaction that causes the electricity to flow. Chemical turns into electrical and then flows through the wire. When the energy flows through the wire, it moves into a coil of wire which has a changing magnetic field because the song changes the frequency of the wire. However the magnet has a contestant magnetic field and when its placed against the coil of wires magnetic field, it allows the magnet to vibrate and in the end it makes sound.
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Physics of Tennis
Physics and tennis go together like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich- Literally! I mean, how else do you think the ball is able to meet contact with the racket or what position the racket must be in to hit the ball? IT"S ALL PHYSICS! The fastest serve ever recorded in the world is 155MPH by the famous player Andy Roddick. But how is one able to do so? Well let me explain. When you toss the ball up in the air, the player will press their feet against the ground and build up on potential energy. Then rotating the hips, legs, shoulders and with the swing of the arm, all of that maximum energy is used to create a perfect cross-court serve. Occasionally if one hits a spectacular serve, you can get what is called an "ace". An ace is basically when your opponent does NOT meet any sort of contact with the ball, and of course you receive the winning point. Yay! Another way that tennis and physics are related is through topspin. A topspin is created when you hit your forehand shot (swinging low to high on the right side of your body and when the racket slides up and over the ball as it is struck.
This makes it so you created a lower angle to the ground, making is harder for your opponent to return the ball. Pretty cool huh? you just learned not only how tennis and physics are related, but also how to hit pretty cool forehand shots and serves! Hope this helped! -
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Physics of softball
So everytime I need to make blog posts I always try to connect what we have been learning in physics to my favorite sport: softball. Now you might think that there are no waves in softball but I am creative and I believe I have found some sort of wave while playing softball. When people throw a softball really high it creates a giant lob that looks like a parabola. And this lob could also look like a half a wave. And if you measured from the ground to where the highest part of the ball reached, you would get the amplitude. But of course, the so called wave would never be finished you would only get to a half a wave and then the ball would hit the ground and die. But today we learned about reflection and could be applied to softball as well. When the ball hits the ground it will be reflected back at the same angle. So I the ball was thrown at a sharp angle measured to the normal line like 70 degrees. The ball would bounce back at that same angle. So while fielding, depending on how the ball hit the ground, you could prepare yourself for where the ball will jump next. Physics can improve your fielding skills.
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Electric Fields
Positive charges their electric fields are pointed out away from the charge. A negative charge their electric field is pointed toward the charge. When a positive and a negative charge are brought close together they will be drawn toward each other, they are magnetic. The electric fields never cross each other when they are magnetic. When you bring a magnetic positive charge and a positive charge together they will be repulsive, the same holds true if you bring a negative charge and a negative charge together. They are repulsive charges. The equation for electric field strength is E=Fe/q.
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pogo sticks
at one point in everyone's lives they have tried to use a pogo stick (some more successful then others).
for starters there is elastic potential energy stored in the spring. which is the work that is done stretching, in this case compressing, the spring. you can find out just how much energy is stored through using the equation PEs= 1/2kx^2. where k stands for the spring constant or the stiffness of the spring and x stands for the displacement from equilibrium. (the difference from the original spring and how long/ short it is after you stretch/compress it. also the more you stretch or compress the spring the greater the fore of the spring. in this case it means that the more you compress the spring the higher off the ground the pogo stick will go. have fun pogoing.
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Physics in Music
We all listen to music daily and share a large appreciation for it however we don't necessarily stop to think about how music travels in sound waves or how they work. We all know that waves transfer energy but sound waves are considered mechanical waves because they require a medium in which they travel through which could be any substance or material that carries the wave along from one location to another and in this case, air would be the medium for sound waves. They travel through the air and our ears pick up the energy from these waves which vibrates against our eardrum and is converted to a nerve impulse which sends that signal to our brain. Sound waves are also considered longitudinal because the wave compression move left or right and the vibrating air particles as well move parallel to the direction the sound wave is travelling. Most of us listen to our music extremely loudly with our headphones blaring, and that means that the sound waves travelling have a high amplitude while when we listen to music as we're trying to fall asleep, its at a much lower volume to form a tranquil setting and those waves have a low amplitude, producing sound at a quieter volume. Also when listening to songs we notice that some singers have higher pitched tones than others and some lower. Having a high pitch indicates a higher frequency of a wave and those singing with a lower pitch indicate a lower frequency of a sound wave.
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The Physics of Skydiving
As someone who is extremely afraid of heights, it is highly unlikely that I will ever go skydiving. However, that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the physics of it. For instance, skydivers accelerate when they go down because the force of gravity is greater than the drag on their bodies. Also, the acceleration in question will always be 9.81 m/s^2 as that is the acceleration due to gravity. But when the parachute is opened, the increase in surface area creates an increase in drag, therefore making the skydiver slow down.
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physics in riding a dolphin
One of my dreams in life is to ride a dolphin at somewhere like seaworld or somewhere in Florida. But, how much power does a dolphin have? Power is really easy to calculate. But first you need to calculate the work done by the dolphin using the equation W=Fd. The force would be the weight of the dolphin multiplied by gravity (9.81m/s^2) and the distance would be exactly that, how far the dolphin would be swimming. Once you have calculated that, you can use the in the power equation which is P=W/t. The t being the time it took from the dolphin to get from it's initial point to its end point. This would be how much power the dolphin has alone. What if you wanted to calculate the power the dolphin had with you on it's back? Then you would add your weight plus the dolphins weight and then multiply it by gravity and use the equation for work to find out the work done. And then plug that into the power equation again. And then you would know how much power you and a dolphin would have together.
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Horse Jumping
Most horses have four gaits that they commonly use. The first, the walk, is a slow, tame, four beat gait. The trot, slightly faster, is a two beat gait. The canter, a three beat gait, has a rocking feel to it. Last but not least is the gallop, which is a fast four beat gait, averaging about 25 mph.
The most comfortable gait for a horse to jump from is the canter. This is a consistent gait that allows the horse enough momentum as well as an even pacing so that an adequate amount of force can be used during the takeoff.
My trainer has told me that there are five components to a jump, all important in making sure that you complete it safely and well, gracefully.
The first is the approach. Approaching the jump means that you must prepare at the correct angle, make sure you have enough room to count out the proper stride length, and give yourself time to think about whether you need the horse to go a little faster (a small nudge with your calves), or slower (a half-halt, pulling slightly with both reins and then releasing), in order to glide into phase two safely.
Phase two is the actual jump itself. When jumping, the horse exerts a force on the ground in order to push itself upwards. This can be represented by Newton's second law or F=ma. Horses can carry up to 30% of their body weight. While this is impressive, it is also a limit. When the horse exerts all of that force on the ground, the ground exerts the same force back. This can seriously damage their back legs if the rider is not careful.
Phase three of the jump is the air time. While the horse is in the air, it is the rider's job to not only sit up, releasing the pressure on their back, but make sure that their landing will be comfortable and set them up correctly to continue the course. During their time in the air, the horse has only potential energy, compared to it's kinetic energy during the approach. At the horse's maximum height, the velocity is zero, meaning the only force acting upon horse and rider is gravity: 9.81 m/s^2.
Phase four is probably the most dangerous phase of the jump, not only because there is a large force between the horse's front legs and the ground, but also due to the fact that all of the rider's weight is put onto the horse's front legs as well, causing a large strain. Again, if the rider does not properly care for the horse, all of this weight and force could potentially damage it's legs.
Phase five, or finale, is after the jump is completed. The velocity of the horse should return to that of the velocity during the approach, meaning the sum of the forces during the entire jump should be equal to zero. The rider should check to make sure the horse is on the correct lead, and proceed to evaluate their next jump, repeating step 1.
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Angle of Reflection in tennis
When professional tennis players serve , the ball usually goes anywhere from 120 to 163.4 MPH (fastest recorded in history) which is pretty darn fast. They try to serve the ball as close to the net as they can so their opponent has a harder time of returning it. The closer to the net makes it so the angle to the incident is greater. The bigger the angle of incident is, the closer the ball is to the ground because it is measured against a right angle with the ground. If there is a small angle of incident, that means the ball bounces more vertically and is easier for the opponent to put away and possible smash into your face which is their point. That is why tennis players try to get the ball as close to the net as they can.
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Physics of trampolines
Everyone loves to jump on trampolines. They are just so much fun! But do you ever think about the physics behind the fun activity? The physics involved in jumping on a trampoline is elastic potential energy. There is elastic potential energy because there are springs all around the trampoline. Elastic potential energy is equal to one-half times the spring constant times the amount of compression squared. To find the spring constant or the amount of compression, you must know the other and the force of the spring and plug it into the spring force equation which is Fs=kx. Once you know both k and x, you can find the amount of energy stored in the springs by plugging them into the elastic potential energy equation. Now you can figure out how much energy is stored in a trampoline before you jump on it!
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Catapult
Creating a catapult has shown me many things relating to physics. What we have learned in class that relates back to a catapult is projectile motion and projectile angles. When you use a catapult you can find its velocity, distance, acceleration and time. You are able to find its horizontal and verticle projectile. The horizontal velocity will be constant which means the acceleration will be 0 m/s^2. Its verticle component would have an initial velocity of 0 and its final velocity would increase. You can use the kinematic equations to solve for its velocity, distance, acceleration or time. You just have to know three of the five to find the unknown.
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