Cheetahs are basically the supercars of the animal kingdom. They have a top speed of 75 miles per hour and a 0 to 60 time of 3 seconds, faster than a vast majority of production sports cars. A light and aerodynamic bone structure reduces drag forces to the absolute minimum, a long tail provides balance while sprinting and counter-forces while turning which allows for extreme agility, and flat paws provide better traction than most cats. A light weight of 125 pounds on average allow the cheetahs
The second major type of telescope is the reflecting telescope. The reflecting telescope was invented by Newton and considered an improvement on Galileo's design. Most reflecting scopes still use Newton's design. Reflecting scopes use a wide concave mirror at the back of the tube to bring light to a focal point in front of the mirror which is then usually reflected sideways toward the eyepiece by a flat, angled mirror. There are also compound scopes that work like reflecting scopes but there is
Here's something I just stumbled upon a few minutes ago. Its Olympus Mons, Mars' largest mountain. Olympus Mons is also the largest volcano in the solar system and the 2nd tallest mountain in the solar system (behind the Rheasilvia peak on the asteroid 4 Vesta). Olympus Mons is a shield volcano and was formed the same way that the Hawaiian islands were, by lava flows hardening and building up over hundreds of millions of years. The difference is that while the Hawaiian chain was formed by Earths
I just found a video of a man playing a Tesla coil as a musical instrument. With a guitar. Basically, the guitar still works the same way but rather than sending its MIDI signals (notes and such) to an amp, it is being sent to a Tesla coil. Tesla coils work by sending alternating current through a wires coiled into a torus (donut shape). The changing current charges a larger torus trough electromagnetic induction. The voltage induced in the second coil is much greater than the first which allows
First things first: I would like to complain about the fact that people are not at all creative while heckling runners. You may think that shouting "Run Forrest, run!" out of your car window is funny and original, but its not. I've heard that at least 20 times in the last few years. In case you have never seen the movie Forrest Gump (shame on you if you haven't, you don't deserve to be a person) this is a reference to the scene when protagonist Forrest is being chased by bullies and his friend J
Last night I happened to look up as I was walking inside at around 10 and noticed that I could see a lot of stars. Like a lot. I am quite a fan of stargazing but despite owning a telescope I have always done it with my naked eyes. But I was in the mood to see some planets in detail so I lugged down the old telescope from the attic and dusted her off only to make a distressing discovery- all the eyepieces were missing (you need those if you want to see anything). My dad and I scoured the dust and
This is a continuation of my last post: Another reason humans are so good at running is we have big butts. I'm not joking. Humans have larger gluteus maximus muscles than any other other species on earth and the gluteus maximus is the most powerful muscle in the human body. Daniel Lieberman, chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, conducted a study of gluteus maximus function and found that the glutes are much more active while running than while walking, in
The other night I watched the movie Black Hawk Down, which is based on the book of the same name (written by Mark Bowden) which was based on the actual events of the Battle of Mogadishu. The short story is that the US sent Army Rangers, Delta Force operators and pilots from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment to remove Somalian dictator Mohamed Farrah Aidid from power and in October of 1993 they conducted a raid with the intent of capturing two of Aidid's highest advisers. The operati
Today was one of those days when all the roads were covered in snow, which is bad for driving and even worse for running. A few steps in that salty slush and you'll be slipping all over the place. What I've found is that snow sticks to the bottom of my shoes and stays there, so rather than my rubber soles trying to get traction with snow, there is just more snow trying to get traction with the snow. This drastically reduces the coefficient of static friction between my shoes and the road, causin
So here's something neat that I just stumbled across on YouTube. It also connects to our current unit of rotational dynamics perfectly. Its called "Cubli" which a compound of the English word 'cube' and the German word 'li' meaning something small in size. Cubli is basically a 15x15cm cube that can move and balance with the help of angular momentum. It contains three flywheels are able to achieve high angular velocity (ω) and acceleration and react quickly to external forces with the help of sen
Warning: not only is this a lame story, its also slightly graphic
Whoever said that running isn't a contact sport was dead wrong, and my right arm can prove it. But more on that later. In the last few years I have seen more kids than I count fall during races, often getting trampled by other runners who are wearing shoes with metal spikes, up to half an inch long, protruding from the bottom. These poor souls always pick themselves up, battered and bloody (literally) and finish the race. I had
So I'll get straight to the point. There has been a lot of talk about insanity and it being crucial to the decisions of all of us to take Physics C, and I think there's some truth to that. I too may be a little insane for taking this class but I think that most people think that I'm completely crazy because I genuinely love running (I don't think that makes me crazy though). Sadly that's most of my life but in my free time I try to do some more exciting things like skiing and longboarding as muc
I have been somewhat obsessed with space lately. I also recently learned that there are spacecraft outside of our solar system, which for some reason just seems really cool to me. In September of 2013 Voyager 1 officially left the heliosphere, which is the area in space dominated by solar winds and charged particles from the sun and extends about twice the distance from Pluto as Pluto is from the sun. The deep space probe Voyager 2 was launched on August 20th, 1977 and Voyager 1 was launched two
In the last few minutes I have noticed a lot of activity on the Aplusphysics blog, which is strange because it's almost midnight. Oh wait, blogs are due tomorrow? That explains something. Right now is the time when everyone cranks out those last couple posts that should have been done weeks ago, and I'm just as guilty as the rest of you. I want to be asleep right now more than anythi- hold it right there, if I'm writing this blog post I must want a good physics grade more than sleep. I also just
Kickstarter is full of cool stuff but a project called Altergaze really caught my eye. What it is is a 3D printed platform with a set of up to 3 lenses inside and a holder for your smartphone. The lenses magnify the screen so that it takes up your entire field of view, allowing you to watch video and whatnot in giant, beautiful panoramic views. And the beauty of it is that since it it 3D printed, the firm starting it is making the templates open source and offering partnerships to just about any
First of all I have to say that I'm surprised that nobody here has blogged about this yet. But in case you haven't heard yet, March 17th was a big day for science, and physics in particular. Researchers from Harvard University and the Smithsonian released evidence of distortion in the cosmic background radiation (shown to the right) caused by gravitational waves from when the universe went through inflation after the big bang. The idea is that in the 1x10-35th of a second after the big bang the
In December of 2013 physicists discovered a way to approximate the amplitude of scattering sub-atomic particles in a way that is much, much simpler than the old method. The idea is that given a set of parameters and whatnot, a geometric object, which is being called an amplituhedron, can be constructed such that it's volume equals the amplitude of a scattered particle from a quantum interaction. The old method involved using hundreds to millions of Feynman diagrams, which show possible ways the
A few days ago scientists confirmed that there is liquid water on Enceladus one of Saturn's 53 or so moons. The surface of Enceladus is covered in a thick sheet of ice but NASA's Cassini spacecraft which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004 has sent back images of geysers of ice, water vapor and organic compounds shooting out from cracks in the ice at the south pole of Enceladus. This was the first sign that there may be liquid water below the ice. Also, NASA noticed slight changes in Cassini's t
Yesterday I climbed Giant Mountain, one of the 46 Adirondack High Peaks. With a summit elevation of 4,627 feet (1,410 m) Giant is the 12th tallest of the high peaks and with an elevation change of 3000 ft in 3 miles it's also on of the steepest. The journey began at the car near the trail head where I was deciding on footwear. The 2 options were hiking boots (0.92 kg a pair) of Nike frees (.42 kg a pair). The boots would be heavier and require more work to ascend the mountain, but would provide
So in my last post I promised to follow up by talking about why humans can run so far, but I'm putting that off for a little bit.
So I was just sitting here, daydreaming about everything I've done this XC season, and I suddenly realized how long it's been since the last time I went out and did my first true love: longboarding. I got into longboarding in 5th or 6th grade, I can't really remember, and its not an understatement to say that it has been a focal point of my life; but I haven't touc
So in case nobody noticed, a few days ago the temperature dropped from levels typical of mid-June to somewhere off the charts that I would estimate to be pretty darn close to absolute zero. Actually, the temperature is now just slightly below the average for the season, but why did it get really cold really fast? To start, I'm sure the jet stream had something to do with it, pushing cold arctic air into upstate NY, and pushing out the warmer tropical air we had been experiencing. But more import
According to Einstein, nothing can move faster than the speed of light (which is exactly 299,792,458 m/s in a vacuum). However this hasn't stopped people from trying to think of clever ways to move something faster than this cosmic speed limit. It has been claimed that by shining a laser on the surface of the moon from earth and moving the laser quickly, the beam moves across the surface at faster than the speed of light, which is partially true. What is actually happening is that photons travel
In my last post I highlighted some of the incredible things that distance runners are able to do, including very long runs at altitude (lower oxygen) and in extreme conditions. But what allows these people to do these kinds of things? The short answer is training. With enough training almost anyone (for the most part excluding the very elderly) could finish an ultra marathon. But why is this? The answer lies in the fact that humans are better adapted to run for long distances than any other anim
As a competitive runner, there is nothing more annoying than being passed at the very end of a race, and nothing more satisfying than doing the passing. The final surge of speed before the finish line is commonly referred to as a "kick" and runners who can consistently run the last 100 to 200 meters of a race in a convincingly Usain Bolt-like fashion are known as having "a kick". Getting passed by someone while they are "kicking" faster than you is called being "outkicked" Unfortunately I'm not
There is one thing that can strike fear into the heart of any cross country runner: hills. Hilly courses are often hated because going uphill is hard, however for a long time I have been telling myself that what goes up must come down, and running downhill is ridiculously easy. The best example of this that I can think of is the Bowdoin Park course in Poughkeepsie, NY. This is widely regarded as one of the hardest XC courses in the state. It's a 5 km course that winds its way up and then down a
