Jump to content
  • entries
    30
  • comments
    20
  • views
    11,515

About this blog

Blogging with the Walshster

Entries in this blog

The Fyzix of Fasteners (Part one of many thrilling installments)

Welcome to our humble abode. Today, we shall perform a brief, directed discourse on the workings of the zipper. Near the turn of the twentieth century, man kind was confronted with a conundrum: how the dickens would they close the flies on their snazzy new Goldrush-era Levis? Already the button fly was becoming associated with a rebel, skater boy type of crowd, and the people were clamoring for something new! Luckily, someone came up with the zipper. Consisting of two rows of teeth, or "

walsh416

walsh416

The Physics of Analog Mice!

Analog mice are markedly simple devices, essentially motion sensors that perform vector addition to calculate a change in position. At the heart of a mouse you'll find ventricles and aortas... (sorry, wrong kind of mouse). At the heart of a computer mouse a rubber ball rubs against two or more rolling bars. This ball is designed to be rather heavy, and have a high coefficient of static friction. These two attributes combine to form a ball that rolls instead of slides (heaviness increases n

walsh416

walsh416

The Fyzix of Fasteners (Part dos of many thrilling installments)

In short, friction. Specifically, its function within screw mechanisms designed to hold things in place. For me, the most apparent example of this is on dumbbells where one has to put on weight plates and then screw a ring in place to hold the plates. If the screw were "ideal," it would have no friction, which would be great except for the fact that it would no longer be a functional fastener. By screwing the ring tight against the weight plates, a force is applied pushing the ring "out.

walsh416

walsh416

Turning a bike!

Golly gee biking (cycling) is hard. Perhaps the hardest part of all is mastering high speed cornering. You see it all the time in the Tour de France; pros carving graceful arcs as they fly down mountainsides at 100kph. How do they do it? By maintaining an incredible awareness of where their center of mass is relative to their bike at all times, and adjusting it so that they can achieve the right angle of cornering. By far the most common mistake any new cyclist will make is to turn their

walsh416

walsh416

The Physics of College Tour Guides

So we were touring an unnamed university's engineering department this weekend. It was pretty cool, the vibe was positive, the people were well adjusted and friendly, and all seemed well. Things took a turn for the dire as we stepped into the acoustics laboratory. Tragically, our tour guide uttered an utterly unforgivable sentence... "If I stood back to back with you inside this acoustically silent room and talked, you couldn't hear me because the sound-proofing is so great!" My first

walsh416

walsh416

×
×
  • Create New...