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More Physics in Volleyball
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.
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Doppler Effect
On the show The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon goes to a Halloween party and dresses as the Doppler effect. he explains his costume to people by giving them the definition "its the apparent change in the frequency of a wave caused by the relative motion between the source of the wave and the observer". throughout the episode he also makes the noise of a car going by when people try to guess what his costume is. This noise he makes is a clear example of the Doppler effect because it sounds louder in the beginning and then fades away. This occurs when a siren of a police car or fire truck passes due to the Doppler effect.
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No Physics in The Hobbit
I just wrote an entire blog entry and it deleted randomly............ oops....... anger.........
Anyway! Let's talk about the new Hobbit movies. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the book as an entertaining action book for his kids. Peter Jackson - whose adaptation of the Lord of the Rings was already controversial - took this thin children's book of between 300 and 400 pages and turned it into a trilogy spanning about 9 hours of new characters, added scenes, invented drama, and life-or-death situations that had not been in the book. The movie is a great action film; it is a bad Middle Earth film. And it is a horror movie for physics enthusiasts. Take a look at the scene in which Gandalf and the dwarves - 10 points to Gryffindor if you can name them all without looking them up! - escape from the mountain of the Goblin King. Gandalf is a powerful wizard, yes. However, his mere presence would not have been able to account for all the impossible things that happened in that scene. The already highly implausible rope and wood bridges and ladders and platforms are questionable. Then take all the dwarves and Gandalf - a combined weight that I do not even want to add up - and put them on one platform. And then throw this raft down the side of a cavern. Every single person stays on the platform for the entire ride down. They land in a heap with groans and sassy remarks. If there had been even a hint of realism in this scene, then every single dwarf would had lost his life. And if Gandalf has not lost his, too, he would not have been able to walk away very soon. And right after that scene, we witness quite an impressive feat. Dwarves are made for mines, and as Gimli so enlightened us to in the original trilogy, they are natural sprinters. I did not know that they could fling themselves up into tall pines so quickly, though! Apparently the call of a Warg gives these heavy humanoids supernatural climbing and jumping abilities.
I like Peter Jackson, don't get me wrong. And fun fact, his birthday was on October 31! It is just that he took a children's book and made a 9 hour trilogy full of life-or-death that was not in the writing! And he also decided that he is cool enough to neglect physics. I understand that Middle Earth is different from our Earth, but I like to think that some of the same physics apply. I suppose that is something only J.R.R. Tolkien could have answered.
Until next time.
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Waking up
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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Living on Mars
Population concerns on Earth are leading scientists to inquire whether colonizing Mars is possible. As of now, over 78,000 people have applied to leave Earth forever and live on Mars. Mars One, a nonprofit organization, is sponsoring the colonization with a take-off date sometime in 2023. Out of the applicant pool, four will be chosen to send first to Mars. The first four will lay the groundwork for a permanent colony. Two years after the first four land, Mars One would send up more people to the colony. With the application process underway, it seems as though scientists have discovered ways for humans to survive on Mars indefinitely. However, this is not the case. Many, many concerns exist such as how will the colonists feed themselves? Will crops which grow on the Earth also grow on Mars?
The first settlers of Mars will most likely be farmers. Yes, they will be astronauts; but, if survival is of any importance to them, they will learn to farm in order to eat. Research which has been conducted supports the idea that growing crops is possible in microgravity. However, those working for NASA do not know to what extent the gravity of Mars will effect crop growth. Also, Mars' surface only receives about half of the sunlight that the Earth's surface receives. Will plants be able to grow with limited sunlight? On top of the already limited sunlight, pressurized greenhouses would be necessary to grow crops. The greenhouses would block out more light. So, additional light would be necessary from other sources than the sun. What would power additional light sources? How would that power be generated and sustained?
Radiation would also be a problem faced by those on Mars. Mars does not have as strong of an atmosphere as the Earth. More radiation reaches the surface of Mars than the surface of the Earth. Inhabitants would need a way to reflect the radiation or shield themselves from the rays.
To live on Mars, man must master the art of agriculture in microgravity. Feeding the inhabitants of Mars is one among many more necessary tasks of survival. As of now, research is still being conducted. The 78,000 who have already showed interest in living on Mars are a bit stupid or extremely bold. With current technology man would not survive on Mars. I do not doubt though that technology will develop in the near future for man to successfully live on Mars.
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Physics of sleeping
It is quite interesting how physics can be found in such random parts of your daily life. One such example of this is sleeping. When a person sleeps, they are exerting a force on the bed that they are sleeping on. According to Newton's Third Law, the bed then exerts that same force back on to the person sleeping. In addition to this, gravity holds the person down to the bed, keeping them grounded. When I need to wake up in the morning, I set an alarm on my phone and put my ringer on high. This way, the high frequency pierces through my sleep, and wakes me up. I have never realized just how much physics is in such a simple act!
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How you can dodge a bullet
I saw this on myth busters, and I decided, even though they said it was not possible, I can still try, or dream of trying at least. It is possible to dodge the bullet of a sniper rifle. If the sniper rifle were far enough, that is.
When the sniper rifle shoots the bullet, 3 components travel towards the target. Light waves, sound waves and a bullet. Light is faster then the bullet and the sound. Having said that, if the sniper was far enough to have a reasonable amount of time between the muzzle flash and the sound getting to you, it is possible to get out of the way. As soon as someone sees the muzzle flash, they could get out of the way, before the sound and bullet get there.
Having said that, DO NOT TRY THAT. it's not possible. I just needed a good story that people would read. It's possible in theory, but never a good idea by any stretch.
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Furious 7
In the movie Furious 7 there was a really cool scene where they dropped their high end cars out of a military plane with parachutes with the drivers in them in hopes to land on a road and continue driving. To shoot the scene they actually did it dropping two cars out at a time with parachutists following on the way down with cameras. At 12,000 feet the skydivers had to follow the cars at the angles needed and dodged falling debris. The shooting for this movie not only took caution and creativity but a knowledge of physics as well.
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the physics of doing hair
Being a girl a generally spend some time getting ready for various events. Getting ready requires many different tools such as curling irons, flat irons, and hair dryers. These tools require a good amount of electricity to power and when you plug more then one of them into the plug the lights dim significantly. This is because the circuits that these are plugged into are only series circuits. This means there is only one path for the current to flow through and when you plug in another tool it requires a lot of extra electricity so the lights dim so enough energy can be pulled for the blow dryer. This way you the circuit wont blow out and a fire wont start even thought it is a possible.
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sledding
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—˜
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Giant Magnet
While re-watching Breaking Bad, or as some call it the meth show, I noticed there was a lot of physics in it. One episode that relates to a new unit we just started was season 5, episode 1. This episode (warning spoilers) is the Giant magnet episode. A short summary of what happened: “That night, Mike hot-wires the gate into the APD parking lot. Walt and Jesse drive the magnet-equipped truck next to the building to the wall outside the evidence room. The magnet disables the guard's computer, alerting the police. In desperation, Walt cranks the magnet up to its maximum voltage, sending a force so strong it tips the truck over. The police security guard finds the evidence room destroyed by the magnet and sends officers outside to apprehend the crooks, but Walt and Jesse escape with Mike, leaving the truck behind.†(Breakingbad.wikia.com). This relates heavily on physics because they constructed a giant electromagnet to create electromagnetic waves. With this they are able to destroy electronics with magnetic fields.
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YOU CAN BE A WALKING HYDROGEN BOMB
The first law of Thermodynamics holds that in any situation the total amount of energy with in is equal to the total amount of energy out. This also means that you can't create energy or destroy it. So well what happened to all the energy we have put in our bodies? The long story short, most of the energy is stored in your body, and on average a human carries around 7*10^18 joules of energy on average. If all that energy were to release all at once, it would have the same effect as setting OFF 30 HYDROGEN BONDS AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!
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prisms
I used to own a prism which split light into different colors. The prism works via Snells law. A ray of light enters the prism and it is refracted inside and seperated into the various different colors that are released from the other side of the prism. The prisms were used to show that regular light was not colorless but simply required a tool to demonstrate the various colors. There are several different types of prisms triangular, abbe, pellin-broca, amici, and compound. I hope we get to use prisms in an experiment later in the year
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biking in the rain
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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physics in sunlight
there is all sorts of physics in sun light. for instance the sun light we see is actually delayed and comes in waves. what happens when a reflective surface meets sun light is that the light is refracted and shines on another surface. this actually occurs on several glass sky scrapers in cities and has been known to actually melt other objects such as parts of cars because the sun light is reflected back on an object.
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eating a donut
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.
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Archery
we are starting the archery unit in gym and I was wondering what the physics we behind it. I did some research and I found some pretty cool stuff about it, I found that when aiming archers generally aim to one side of their target and the arrow straightens out during flight. the arrow is able to straighten out because the fishtail at the end of the arrow oscillates causing the arrow to move back towards the center.
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Space
space is very interesting mainly because of how different it is compared to earth which makes since but what's very interesting is how some waves are able to pass through the reaches of space while other waves are not able to like light waves are able to go from the sun to us with no problem but sound waves it is impossible for the waves to go through space and that is because in the world there are mechanical waves like sound would be one and that means they need a medium to travel through to carry the energy like on earth they would be air generally but in space there is no medium for it to travel through however something like light is an electromagnetic wave which means it can travel even if it doesn't have a medium this is why we are able to get light from the sun.
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How to carry groceries
Every time I get groceries with my mom I try to bring all of them in the house at once. She typically says, "You should take more trips!" But physics is on my side. It requires more work to bring in several loads of groceries opposed to just one big load. If work is a force x a distance than one big trip will require the least amount of work. To make one big load requires me to move the huge load of groceries, and myself once from the car into my house and into the kitchen. Simply taking two trips would require me to move myself from the car twice and back out to the car once. Splitting the groceries into two loads requires the exact same amount of work to move the groceries once because the force is halved but the distance is doubled. The issue of splitting the groceries into two or more loads is the work required to move myself is added. If assumed the distance is 20 meters from my house to the car and the groceries weigh about 100 kilograms then the force of the groceries is 1000N. The work required to move the groceries 20 meters is about 20,000 J. I weigh about 80 kilograms then the force of gravity is about 800N so it takes about 16000J to move myself. One trip of groceries would be 20,000 J + 16,000 J = 36,000J. Two trips would be 10,000 J(half the groceries) + 16,000 J + 16,000 J + 10,000 J +16,000J = 68,000 J. This is because I must move myself with the groceries 20 meters, then myself back to the car, then myself back inside with groceries again. By doing all of the work in one load I save 32,000 J of energy. Regardless of the load of groceries one big trip would save 32,000 J of work. It may be too difficult to carry all of the groceries at once but a load weighing perhaps weighing 20 kilograms is definitely manageable and effective in conserving energy if all done at once.
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Physics in Going Super Saiyan
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.
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Video: Test Trial of Catapult
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.
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Physics in falling
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.
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