A dear friend of mine and I have recently started playing NCAA Football 12 on his 360 and most of the time I win, thanks to my knowledge of physics. Because I understand the concepts of conservation of momentum, work, and air drag, I very often run the ideal football play - the running back slip screen. For this play, the offensive linemen break their blocks on some of the defensive players who are rushing the quarterback. Lured into the illusion that they can have an easy sack, these linemen
Although I had to quit indoor track because of an ankle injury, I did learn a lot about the precision of triple jumping form from my coach. Previously, I had run my approach with my chest not perpendicular to the ground but slightly more forward and my knees did not move very high. With this form, my momentum (which points perpendicular from my chest) was pointed into the ground, preventing me from jumping as far as possible. My knees also needed tweaking, since a lot of the power from jumpin
Because I have a habit of bouncing from activity to activity, I chose to participate in the musical this winter after my body failed to push through the pain of indoor track. With my luck, it turns out that the musical this year has multiple tapping numbers, so i get to learn how to tap dance! So I wondered, how do tap shoes make the noise that they do?
The physics is really quite simple. When the tapper pushes their foot to the ground, a lot of the kinetic energy is converted into sound ene
As the playoffs are underway, Bills fans (the sad category that I put myself under) have the same dilemma as they have since the 21st century began - which team are they going to root for in the playoffs this year? Year after year, the Bills struggle to qualify for the post season, a big reason being that they never have a strong quarterback. Their most recent excuse - Ryan Fitzpatrick. So lets look at why he's so awful:
When you look at an elite quarterback like Tom Brady (as much as I ha
Reflecting on my Christmas presents, I immediately think of the incredible gift that my sister Julia got me, these super comfortable moon boots. But why are they so comfortable? As with most things, physics offers an explanation. As we've learned way back with momentum, impulse is equal to the force multiplied by the change in time. Impulse also equals the change in momentum, and given that momentum is conserved when only conservative forces are acting on the object, the impulse does not cha
Given that this is my first post of the second quarter, it's fair to say that I am not always on top of my Physics work. And since I have not been doing as well on our tests as I would hope, I have a couple new year's resolutions regarding Physics:
1) Do my blog posts before the weekend that they are due!
2) Continually look over equations so as to hammer them into memory
3) Study more diligently before tests instead of "hoping for the best" as I often do
With these resolutions, hopefu
No doubt, the weakest part of my tennis game is returning hard serves. I often try to hit powerful shots, so i take a large backswing. But, when returning a serve, the ball already has a high velocity, so a large backswing is not needed to hit the ball back with a high velocity. Actually, a small swing is much more effective and accurate. This is because of the principle of momentum. When hitting a serve, a large swing is necessary to give the ball a high speed because the ball, right befor
If you have ever watched Hot Rod, one of my favorite movies, then you understand the joy/hilarity of poorly thought out stunts. My brother and I have always enjoyed puting ourselves in harms way of the purpose of an awesome video, but I've discovered that we are much more willing to do painful stunts if we are landing into water instead of on solid ground. Most recently, we went to some pier that was 10 or so feet off of the ground and attempted backflips on our bikes off of a ramp into the wa
So, we all know that everyone in our AP-C Physics class has to be a nerd to be crazy enough to take this class, and i think we could come up with a lot of great nerd costumes. For spring potential energy and conservation of energy, someone could attach a spring to the front of his or her clothing and then run into people and bounce off with equal kinetic energy. Or, for centripetal motion, someone could carry around a rope which he or she hands one end of to random a random person and then run
In the wake of the costly hurricane Sandy, its interesting to look at how physics explains the dangers of those extremely powerful winds. In my backyard, the gusts snapped a horizontal branch off of one of my trees on monday night, so I wondered how dangerous it would be if I was standing under the branch when it hit the ground. The branch was about 4 meters high. Assuming that the wind was moving completely horizontal and perpendicular to the branch, the branch would have had no vertical for
As we dive into impulse and momentum in this independent physics unit, I am reminded of my only car "crash" I've ever experienced, if you can even call it that. When I was backing up in a small parking lot several months ago, the back of my car bumped into a small pole that I didn't see, jerking my car to a stop. Due to the minimum speed my car was moving at (5 mph or 2.24 m/s), my car was not damaged at all. So I was interested in finding out what speed it would have been damaged. Given tha
Continuing with the physics of recreational sports, I'd like to talk about the physics of tether ball, a sport I'm not quite as good at. But, tether ball clearly demonstrates centripetal motion, and is very interesting to delve into. A player will hit the ball with a horizontal force F. Neglecting air resistance, this will temporarily be the only force on the ball, and will equal the mass of the ball times the acceleration of the ball. Centripetal acceleration equals (v^2)/r, so, given that
Ping Pong has always been one of my favorite leisure time activities, and after embarrassing a good friend of mine yesterday with my ping pong skills, the physics of the sport came to mind, especially the physics of my favorite shot: the top spin shot. Arguably the most effective shot, the top spin increases your accuracy with more powerful shots, and is very difficult to return. But why?
The picture above shows how the spin of the ball forces the air below the ball to take a longer path,
As I perpare myself mentally, physically, and spiritually for the upcoming CYO basketball season, I can't help but think of the physics that partner with a fluid and successful basketball shot. Players that have perfected their basketball shot, like Ray Allen, have found a combination of enough leg bend, a straight-armed follow through, and an effective wrist flick. With these three key components, the ball travels with arc and backspin in a projectile motion, sailing through the hoop. The poten
Depressingly, I followed the whizzing ball as it flew past the 50, the 60, the 70, and even the 80 yard mark. Our costly (both with time and money) trebuchet could not compare to the spring loaded demon of a catapult that bested our yardage by 44. But, this project certainly did improve my engineering knowledge. Comparing my trebuchet to another very similar one that flung the softball farther, I saw that with a stiffer structure, we could have had more success. If we had used screws instead
So good thing I spent half an hour trying to figure out how to make a post, and then thought, 'hey, maybe I should actually look at that sheet that Mr. Fullerton gave us,' only to realize that all I had to do was verify my account, and that I wasn't supposed to make my real name my user name. But anyways, here is my post. The first thing to know about me is that I love Jesus, and really the reason there's any need for you to know that is because that is why I'm taking AP-C Physics. I would lo
