Physics is everywhere, all of the time. This seems cliche but I really am beginning to grasp that, as this year draws to a close. No matter what I do, every single day I make connections to the concepts from the classroom and life. I don't try to, but that is what taking physics does to you. It alters your perspective eternally, as things that simply happened before now hold within them staggering amounts of math and headache inducing levels of thought. At any time, a baseball in flight can
Our team in the KSP challenge, Brazanah Inc., won the water bottle rocket challenge this year. This is the second straight year I have participated, and have gained several insights through the process. The first main thing is the value of a parachute, and the power of drag forces. A simple parachute turned a modest rocket that did not go very high into one that lasted 5.85 second in the air, all through air resistance. Our parachute was only a few feet in diameter but the rocket slowed to a
As a fan of sports and video games, and a student of physics, it is very interesting to see the two try and merge. Every year Madden is boasting about how its new game will better incorporate momentum into creating authentic collisions between players, and yet every year the ball floats through the air like it is filled with helium. Also, the NBA games talk about incorporating momentum and weight into player movement while enabling players to make unrealistic changes in direction. Game compan
Well, with one more day to go, I would like to attempt to capture a year's worth of memories in a few short words. I have never thought so hard, been so frustrated, or studied so much in my life as I did for Physics C. Despite all that, or maybe even because of it, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything and given the opportunity to do so I would take the class again in a heartbeat. Having a class that forced me to struggle to understand the base concepts, to work just to establish a foot
Here are the three concepts that I believe I will remember the most from the past year as I go on into life.
1) Momentum and Impulse: I cannot express how often as I watch sports or any kind of everyday movement I am reminded of momentum. Now, when I watch football and see a seemingly big hit, I do not react the same way if I see that the hit was delivered over a longer time, as I would expect, the players often walk away unscathed. Pool is another example, as it is often the textbook case
The times square ball is dropped from a height of 43 m every year at the start of the new year. However, I feel the ball drop should be timed so the ball lands at the turn from one year to the next. Thanks to kinematics, we know the time it takes the ball to fall (neglecting air resistance) is = radical ((2h)/g), or radical ((2*43)/9.8). This means the ball should drop 2.962 seconds prior to midnight to land at the start of the new year. Happy 2013 everybody.
With all of the recent gravitation problems involving foreign planets, I investigated the other planets. I found out Mars has gravity only 38% of Earth's gravity, and its moons Phobos orbits the planet twice in a martian day. Mostly I wanted to take the opportunity to share this awesome story about the Mars rover Curiosity I found. http://news.yahoo.com/road-trip-tap-nasas-mars-rover-134636007.html. Apparently Curiosity will be visiting a Martian mountain in 2013, and will continue to investi
Ever since the announcement of a possible discovery of the Higgs-Boson by the scientists at CERN, I have been trying to understand just what it is. Scientists believe it is what transfers mass to objects as they pass through the Higgs field. Also theoretical, this field is what explains mass under the Standard Model of the atom and its use in particle physics. So, without the tandem of the Higgs field and Higgs Boson, there would be no mass. If they are real. I find this all very confusing,
Irondequoit High School physics students recently finished making catapults, and it was a blast. It was also an excellent way to look at how interconnected physics truly is. In our catapult, we used spring potential energy to create torque on the catapult arm, which generated angular velocity and kinetic energy, which in turn was transferred to the softball and sent it moving out over the football field. Seeing how the many topics of physics can come together to create a fun and practical (If
Simple harmonic motion has long been one of the hardest units for me to conceptualize and use in problems. This year, with the addition of calculus and the many new applications that came with it, I was quite nervous. However, while things looked confusing the calculus actually made things easier, just simple deriving and integrating to express the same things in new ways. Also, I have begun to see that all of the equations come from a few core rules and concepts this second time through SHM,
In AP-C right now, we are doing an independent unit for impulse and momentum. I love this idea, and it is going very well. Being able to do things in the order which works best for me, first reading and watching the course material, then starting with a practice test to see where I am and then moving on to a lab, before doing practice problems is great and makes the unit feel more interesting and engaging.
Science fiction novels are all about projecting the wildest possibilities for future technology to entertain readers, which is why it is so astounding how often what is written comes true and so interesting to think what will come true next. Robert Heinlein wrote of mechanical hands controlled by a human, a technology now used in medicine, which was only imaginary at the time he thought of it. He also is credited with the idea for the water bed. So, what will be the next technology to become
The right hand rules are infamous. They lead to thousands of physics students nearly tying their hands int knots trying to determine the direction of magnetic fields and magnetic forces. Yet if we can look past that, they are quite remarkable. The idea that someone could find a relationship and develop conventions that enable us to figure out something as abstract as magnetism with our fingers is incredible. The elegance and ingenuity of physicists never ceases to amaze.
People truly are incredible. Take a simple act like throwing a baseball, something anyone can be taught to do quite easily. Yet this simple action involves two dimensional motion, rotational velocity, UCM torque and energy. From making sure your arm is fully extended to create more torque, which produces more velocity on the ball, to releasing the ball at an optimal 45 degree launch angle to get maximum distance. Not to mention the transfer of energy, from kinetic to potential as well as non
Nuclear energy has long been, and likely always will be controversial. Its supporters cite the massive amounts of energy it can produce, while its detractors point to the radioactive byproducts of the fission method used now. And while events such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the failing nuclear plants during the Japan crisis are all reasons to fear nuclear energy, it cannot be dismissed. That is because of Cold Fusion, the work being done to create energy by fusing hydrogen atoms at a
We just finished all of Mechanics for AP physics C, and I want to reflect on the highs and lows of the semester. I most enjoyed learning about rotational motion, specifically angular momentum, as it was so unlike anything from last year. Finally learning to deal with rolling objects felt like a real step forward from last year. I found oscillation to be the most challenging unit, and cross products to be the most confusing new concept. I really enjoyed independent units and hope we do anothe
Space Planes! I only recently began experimenting with the space plane features of KSP, but they offer a wealth of information about drag and air resistance. The steering of these planes is so sensitive, that you really see how rudders and pitching affect flight. Also, placing aerodynamic caps on engines rather than leaving them flat noticeably alters acceleration and top speed capabilities of a plane. Trying to build a plane is also complex, as you have to consider how much wight the wheels
Once we achieved orbit around the sun, I first encountered orbital nodes. These nodes are a fairly simple notion, as relative to a plane of reference there are two points of intersection with that plane. At one, you are crossing from underneath and are ascending, hence the name ascending node. The descending node is where you cross below the plane. While attempting to encounter a planet's gravitational field, we attempted to make our orbital nodes as small as possible, getting them to 0.1 deg
There is so much to talk about regarding our final project of the year, using the game Kerbal Space Program to explore interplanetary physics. At first, I had no idea how the game could actually teach us about physics. Then, we tried to go into orbit. The accurate depiction of momentum as you try to lock on to a location with S.A.S only to have your rocket oscillate as it slowly loses its angular momentum is a nerve racking and accurate simulation. In a less obvious fashion, learning when to ma
Our team landed on Minmus during this project, and other teams landed on Duna and Mun. All of these landings and moonwalks have me thinking about the future of space exploration for humans. For example, I have heard a lot of speculation about a manned mission to Mars recently. There are even some talking of colonizing. It was watching the Kerbals jump so high on Minmus that I realized I will never buy into that theory. Mars' gravity is less than half of earth's, at 3.711 m/s. I cannot beli
I completely failed to mention something I found fascinating in earlier posts, and I believe t deserves its own blog post. The amount of fuel needed to break orbit compared to that needed to maneuver in space is staggering, nearly all our fuel and stages are dedicated to breaking Kerbin's hold. I now realize that as silly as NASA's launches looked to me as a child, with their massive fuel tanks and enormous engines, that grvity his simply that strong. It takes a remarkable amount of fuel to b
Hockey is back, so I decided to calculate the max speed a skater can take around a level circular turn on ice with a radius of 20 meters using the algorithm v = radical(urg). With the coefficient of kinetic friction between the skates and the ice being approximately .15, the max speed is radical(.15*20*9.8) or 5.42 m/s.
I have long feared the start of Electricity and Magnetism in Physics C, and following the introduction to this semester with a hard unit on E fields and forces, I know that this will be as hard as I thought. I didn't realize that it would be fun however, as I am finding myself enjoying the new elements of electricity such as Gauss' law and the fact that the calculus isn't as bad as I envisioned. There is still a long way to go but hopefully E and M won't be the nightmare I envisioned on day on
Halloween has come and gone, and I did absolutely nothing as usual. But if I could go back and participate how would I dress up? If you are a physics student in need of a costume for next year try some of these: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, whenever someone asks you a question, you aren't sure of the answer; An electron, simply run in circles around the "nucleus" of normal people at the party; or perhaps an isochoric process. If anyone asks you to do something, simply reply that you do
Following our study of gravitation, I decided to calculate what the value of g would be if the Earth's gravitational field extended to the International Space Station's orbital height, with the equation g = (GM)/r^2. With the radius = the radius of the earth (6,370,000 m) plus the ISS's distance above Earth (240 miles or 386,243 M), r = a total of 6,756,243 m. Therefore g at the ISS's height would be 8.767 m/s^2.
