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Physics of a clock

At this point I am so beyond tired that all I can think about is the time, hence the physics of a clock blog post idea. However just as i became so tired that this idea popped into my mind and I became outrageously enthused and will make this a wonderful thirtieth blog post!! There are many methods of operation clocks utilize. These are the spring loaded, pendulum/weight powered and even more modern clock variations which i will explain later. Most of the modern clocks now utilize these

SwagDragon15

SwagDragon15

Neutron Stars

Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of some massive stars. They pack roughly the mass of our Sun into a region the size of a city such as Chicago or another large american city. Neutron stars are some of the densest types of massive objects in the universe, at times reaching densities of over 10e14 g/cc. At these incredibly high densities, you could cram all of humanity into a volume the size of a sugar cube, giving one just a sense, even though it is simply impossible to wrap your mind arou

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SwagDragon15

The Theory of Relativity

The theory of relativity encompasses two theories of famous scientist Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. Concepts introduced by the theories of relativity include: -Measurements of various quantities are relative to the velocities of observers. In particular, space and time can dilate. -Spacetime: space and time should be considered together and in relation to each other. -The speed of light is nonetheless invariant, the same for all observers. Some, and to many mos

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SwagDragon15

Physics of Writing

This blog is in reaction to an experiment conducted recently by a team of scientists from South Korea led by Ho-Young Kim. It essentially was created to explain the physics of writing, something the human race has been wondering for well over five thousand years since scripture came into the world. The team concluded that the smaller cavities in paper have a greater capillary pull than the wider tube of the pen, but very small pores also restrict the flow of the ink. As long as the pores

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SwagDragon15

The Physics of Spin on a Tennis Ball

There are two types of spin that a player can apply to a tennis ball, those being topspin and backspin. What prompted my thoughts on this idea would be my attendance of the University of Rochester tennis match today against Nazareth. As these advanced players made the ball skip and flip and kick every which way, my mind went crazy! :labmate) A topspin shot is hit by sliding the racquet up and over the ball as it is struck. By dragging the racquet over the ball, the friction between the rac

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SwagDragon15

Hockey Checks!

As the Habs and Bruins game is getting increasingly interesting I want to do these blogs less and less to be completely honest, however we all need to make sacrifices :eagerness: So despite my promise to myself that i would refrain from doing any further blogs immediately regarding hockey, the opportunity is just too tempting. So feel free to skip by the text in this blog and just check out the insane hits that have ruined careers in the video below!!!:afro: I will not take any offense. Che

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SwagDragon15

Physics of a Tsunami

As we all know, Tsunamis are waves. Specifically, they are water waves that form in the ocean, where the depths of the water average 4 km. Displacement of water following a huge release of energy from, say, an earthquake or a cosmic body impact creates a wave or a series of waves that have a wavelengths on the order of hundreds of kilometers long. Although they usually have relatively small amplitudes of about one meter, the volume of water and speeds achieved by the waves are what creates the

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SwagDragon15

Andy Roddick Serve

This blog will, as many of you may have expected, examine yet another sports related topic. In this case we will look at another very impressive athletic feat, this being the serve of tennis legend Andy Roddick. Like Chara's slap shot, the serve is composed of multiple different phases, each incorporating a multitude of physics concepts in every small motion. These include the wind-up the toss and the strike, respectively. As the toss goes up, players press their feet against the court, us

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SwagDragon15

Shooting a Hockey Puck

I am currently watching the Habs and Bruins play, and might i say it is getting quite chippy! However this is beside the point, as I have blog posts to do. So i figured i would post about what is on my mind, and currently that is hockey. In this blog i will examine briefly the physics behind shooting a hockey puck and even more so examine each type of shot individually including the wrist shot and slap shot, as well as the effect of the stick type on velocity in the end. A wrist shot as you

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SwagDragon15

Physics of Flight

i like birds and since my avatar is a dragon i figured i would do the physics of flying especially considering i have absolutely no idea about what else to do and I have to do ten of these in the next two days :livid:. Moving on, there are three main forces that enable an object to achieve flight, being drag, lift, and thrust. To better understand flight we should consider air as acting like a fluid. It is not a liquid, like water, but is a called a fluid because the force needed to deform i

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SwagDragon15

Diamagnetic Levitation

Many common materials like wood, water, plants, animals, diamonds, fingers etc. are considered not to be magnetic but are in fact very slightly diamagnetic. Diamagnets repel, and are repelled by a strong magnetic field, and two of the strongest known diamagnetic materials are bismuth and graphite. Compared to the forces created by traditional magnets, diamagnetic forces are exponentially weak, however when arranged and prepared properly, can produce startling effects, levitation in this case.

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SwagDragon15

Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon Nanotubes are obviously tube shaped materials, made of carbon, having a radius measuring on the nanometer scale. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, or a bout one ten thousandth of the thickness of human air. The nanotubes have a variety of different structures, differing in length, thickness and the type of helicity and number of layers. However, most of the carbon nanotubes are formed from the same graphite sheet essentially. The differences listed above are what lead to di

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SwagDragon15

Physics of Wet Dog

We have all seen those slow motion captures of a canine mid-shake, but lets delve deeper for a moment and look at it from the point of view of a true physicist. :banghead) In this blog I will explain the concepts of Andrew Dickerson's book titled "The Wet Dog Shake," in which he, along with Georgia Institute of Technology scientists, attempt to determine the optimum speed at which dogs should shake to most effectively dry their fur. The team actually constructed a mathematical model of the pr

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SwagDragon15

New, More Powerful Magnets!

NEW MAGNETS PEOPLE! These magnets essentially have fewer electrons, which means stronger magnetism and could lead to new energy saving technology. These new magnets are made from a material called bismuth telluride, to which the magnetic material called manganese is added. This class of material is called topologic insulators. What makes this bismuth so interesting is the behavior of its electrons, in that they behave very differently from those in a conventional magnet. For example, they d

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SwagDragon15

Plasma TV

As I was watching my falcons drop the ball again against the 49ers yesterday, I could not help but, like always, wonder about my status on physics blogging. So here goes nothin, PLASMA TVS'S! The general goal of the machine is to light up tiny colored fluorescent lights which as a group produce the image that we see. Each pixel is made of of three of these fluorescent lights, red, green and blue. Similar to the Cathode-ray television, the plasma tv varies the intensity of light to produce ea

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SwagDragon15

Black Holeeeeee

Black holes are quite legitimate and in fact very boss indeed. A black hole is formed when a big 'ol star in space undergoes a process called gravitational collapse, in which most or all of its mass is compressed into a very, very small area of space, causing infinite spacetime curvature!!! :worked_till_5am: This means that nothing, not even light can escape from the border. And although we apparently know so much about them, nobody has ever actually observed a black hole. The theory of bl

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SwagDragon15

Kicking a Field Goal

Well as you may know, just six hours ago the current Falcon regime earned there first playoff win over the Seattle Seahawks by a final score of 30-28. Russel Wilson is a scumbag and completely deserved this just for the record. The game was won and sealed by a 49 yard Matt Bryant field goal with 8 seconds left and I need blog posts so I will now write about what I think of my team being an absolute power house. Enjoy :beaten: The essentials of kicking a field goal are all projectile motion

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SwagDragon15

Nothin Like an Electirc Fan Brotha

It's getting quite warm outside for January, and I got really hot today so I turned on the fan, thus triggering hours of research and development of different hypotheses on how a fan could possibly relate to Physics and more importantly how I could get a blog post out of it because I believe they are due sometime early this week. :egg) Well first we will begin with the workings of the appliance that I love so much (second only to the microwave). An electric fan consists of an electric motor

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SwagDragon15

Dribbling a Basketball

As I have learned from participating in CYO basketball over the years, maintaining control of the ball is dang hard and nobody on my team ever has been good at it. But when attempting to dribble, I cannot help but wonder what sort of physics are behind what would seem such a simple motion. To begin, why does it seem to work that the ball almost always bounces lower in respect to its original height that it had been dropped from? This is because of a rule discovered by many a physicist that e

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SwagDragon15

Walking?

All the fundamental laws of physics are involved in arguably a human's most simple movement throughout the day. The law of conservation of energy, Newton's three basic laws and even gravity are all involved in simply walking across a room! :eek: The conservation of energy is that TE=PE+KE+W where total energy equ​als potential energy plus kinetic energy plus work. Our total energy is conserved when walking obviously, which means a variety of things. The potential energy is the biochemical p

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SwagDragon15

Symphony of Science

When preparing to write my final blog post of the quarter, I couldn't help but to think back to last year in Powlin's class and recall the most incredible thing he did for us in that class, being introduce us to this wonderful Physics video (Narrated by Morgan Freeman, making it just that much better.) The video goes into exploring the nature of atoms and subatomic particles, which indeed are the "jiggling things" that make up each and every single thing that we see on this earth. It all comes

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SwagDragon15

Explanation of Fire

Alright, this blog is for all you pyros out there like me. I couldn't help but want to delve a little deeper into the nature of fire, and what I found is pretty interesting. In actuality, fire is simply a gas thats hot enough to incandesce, which means give off blackbody radiation whos color is determined by the temperature. Very hot fires can on occasion even reach the plasma phase, where they become partially ionized. However, the average fire burns at about 1000F, which produces the chara

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SwagDragon15

Swimming!

This winter I am considering taking on a new task, swimming! It is only logical that I experiment prior to undertaking said act so I have, and I will now share my findings with y'all. Water is 1000 times more resistant than air, its just a fact, an unfortunate one for people trying to travel in water. The way to get around this is streamline form, which takes into account the resistance equation R = 1/2 DpAv^2. As you can see, to achieve the greatest velocity one must reduce their surface ar

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SwagDragon15

Juggling

When I learned how to juggle, I certainly did not decipher the act for a major physics action but rather just learned on instinct. The physics behind juggling can actually be pretty impressive if you take a moment to look at it. Major concepts involved include parabolic arcs, speed, velocity, acceleration, air resistance and the force of gravity. In addition, the juggler needs to determine the objects center of gravity to effectively toss it in the air and predict its path. The most importan

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SwagDragon15

Doin Work in CYO

As David may have already informed you all with his post basketball season is quickly approaching, and analyzing the physics of the game will hopefully allow our team to not be absolutely horrible so we can have fun and actually win for a change as we dribble and twerk down the court. But as everyone may not realize, the physics starts much sooner than simply when the basketball is released. Lets divide the game into individuals sections and take it from there to figure out how to be a total b

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SwagDragon15

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